


Death of the author

by numot94 (futureplans)



Category: Red Velvet (K-pop Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fairy Tale, F/F, Fluff and Angst, Underage Drinking
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-06
Updated: 2018-12-31
Packaged: 2019-07-27 04:15:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 11
Words: 35,134
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16211201
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/futureplans/pseuds/numot94
Summary: All Seungwan wanted was to escape reality at least for a little while and go live in some fairy tale where everything goes right and everybody’s happy. Still, she didn’t expect it to actually happen! Now that she’s found herself in the fairy tale kingdom overnight, she’ll do her best to keep the story on track and make sure princess Joohyun gets her happily ever after with the prince. Of course, nothing is ever that simple, is it?





	1. An unexpected journey

**Author's Note:**

> Hey everyone, I'm back with another wenrene fic. This one doesn't have any smut and it isn't the bigger fic I mentioned last time (still writing that one, sorry!), but I hope you'll like it.

_The prince married the princess, amid much merriment and celebration, and they lived happily ever after._

Seungwan shut the book with a sigh. She’d gotten in bed hours ago, but after much tossing and turning, she’d only turned the light back on and picked up the volume from her bedside table, starting again from the first page.

She’d already read it three times over since she’d found it at a corner of the library, missing the usual markings to identify it as a library book. Her original intention had been to return it at the front desk and go home, but when she reached her room and emptied her backpack, the book sat right at the bottom, looking curiously appealing.

There was no writing on the back, only a perfectly even burgundy cover to match the burgundy front, where the words “The Enchanted Kingdom” were spelled out in golden font. Seungwan wasn’t sure what to expect, but something compelled her to open the book to the first chapter and begin reading.

And suddenly a few hours had passed and she was done. She’d read the entire thing from cover to cover without even realizing it and all she could think was that she wanted to read it again. She didn’t even know why she wanted to return to that fantasy world so desperately. The writing was pleasant, but not mind-blowing. The plot was interesting, but not unexpected. Yet somehow all the elements came together in such a way that her mind was immediately filled with nothing but that story.

On the second read-through, she realized it was the characters that really made the story shine. It was a standard fairy-tale, which usually entailed relatively one-note characters with not much depth. In this case, even if it was in the tiniest things, all the characters seemed so fleshed out and human, like real people. She couldn’t help but wish she could befriend the brave captain of the guards, the mysterious mage at the service of the king, the resourceful lady in waiting with a few tricks up her sleeve.

And then there was the princess. Arguably the main character in all this, even if she did spend half the story being the victim of attempted kidnappings, curses or attacks. She was kind but wilful, ready to submit for the good of the kingdom but equally ready to sneak off when she felt suffocated by all her aides and guards. Some might call her reckless, but to Seungwan she just seemed naïve. Too innocent to realize the danger of her actions.

The third time she finished the book, tangled in her bedsheets, she felt deflated by disappointment. Like she kept going through the same story in the hopes that eventually she’d find something new. Something more. She just wanted to learn more about the princess, even if it was only a series of boring, everyday events. It felt cruel that there was no more of her. That outside of this small volume that she’d leafed through again and again, she simply didn’t exist. None of it did.

She wished she could burrow inside this fairy-tale world and stay there. Inside it, any problem that arose could be fixed with magic or sword-fighting or a well-timed confession of love. In real life, things weren’t so simple. School was hard, applying for universities was complicated and she couldn’t even grow up enough to stop reading fairy tales.

She let her head land on the book with a thud, trying to sigh away all her troubles but only managing to run out of breath from the deep exhale. For one brief moment, she wished with all her heart that she could escape her own life, even if it was just for a day. To explore a magical kingdom, to be a noblewoman, to meet a real princess. One that was kind but wilful and, according to the book, the fairest in all the land.

Nothing happened, of course, so she simply put the book back on her bedside table, turned off the light and tried to fall asleep. Maybe she’d wake up in a room in the palace, in a big fluffy canopy bed. She’d always wanted one of those.

(…)

She didn’t wake up in a palace. She didn’t wake up in her own room either. In fact, she didn’t wake up at all. She simply found herself, all of a sudden and without any warning, walking down a dusty dirt road in a wide dress filled with frilly layers.

The situation was so unexpected that she couldn’t even find it in herself to be surprised. It seemed as natural as anything to go to sleep in her bed and, an undetermined amount of time later, be walking down an unfamiliar path in unfamiliar clothes with no recollection of the events in between.

She swung her head from side to side, trying to identify her surroundings. All she could see were a few trees and shrubs covering the grassy lands that stretched in every direction. In the distance, she spotted some crudely-built houses, but nothing more. No cities, no roads, no helpful signposts. She continued along the dirt path which curved up to a small hill, not sure what she should do or how scared she should be.

The sound of hooves hitting the ground at regular intervals caught her attention a few seconds before a horse appeared over the hill, galloping in her direction. On it was probably a woman, judging by the equally frilly dress that cascaded over the sides of the animal, but Seungwan was a bit too preoccupied with the fact that a creature taller than her was speeding towards her on its powerful legs to study the rider more carefully.

Long before a collision could occur, however, the horse’s trajectory changed abruptly, guided by a pull on its reins to veer off the road and away towards a cluster of vegetation where pretty flowers were growing. Seungwan followed it with her eyes, exhaling in relief, before remembering her own situation and running off after it. This was the only person she’d seen so far and she couldn’t risk letting her run off without even trying to make contact.

The horse slowed to a trot, then to a walk, before eventually coming to a halt. Its rider jumped off easily, which was even more impressive given her attire. Seungwan herself was having a bit of trouble running while an endless array of frills swept every which way and nearly got tangled up in her legs, but she miraculously managed to keep from tripping on her way to her unknown saviour.

The flowers stood prettily, awaiting their admirer, and Seungwan was surprised at how completely they had captured the rider’s attention. Even now, with a strange woman running towards her at full speed, she only had eyes for the delicate vegetation, stepping towards the colourful array so carefully that one would think she was afraid of scaring them off.

Seungwan stopped a few yards away to catch her breath before calling out to the woman, bracing herself on her knees as she took in large painful lungfuls. When she looked up, somewhat composed, the unknown woman was stooping to gather a small bouquet, picking each flower lovingly. She seemed short, probably around Seungwan’s height, and she had silky black hair, tied into an elaborate braid that fell nearly down to her waist.

The rider got back up and inspected her collection happily, a small smile on her lips. She stood facing Seungwan and would surely notice her as soon as her eyes moved up from the flowers, but Seungwan suddenly felt incapable of uttering a single word. The woman was beautiful, her skin so immaculate that it looked like porcelain, her lips pretty and pink like rose petals. Her eyes, still studying every shade and hue of the bouquet in her doll-like hands, sparkled in a silent appreciation of beauty, but Seungwan was sure that, had she been able to tear her eyes away from this woman’s face and towards the flowers, she would only see a fraction of the perfection that the stranger embodied.

She continued staring in a daze, vaguely aware that the longer she remained silent, the weirder it would be once she spoke up, when a bearded head appeared behind the distracted woman, popping out of a bush. The head was attached to a torso and all the usual body parts and they all began to move forward stealthily, one arm at about the height of the woman’s mouth, the other ready to wrap around her waist.

“Hey!”, Seungwan called out by reflex, her powerful shriek stunning the creepy man for an instant. Luckily, that was all it took for his victim to start violently, noticing him at a glance and immediately running off back to her horse. His face contorted in displeasure as he weighed his options, but already two others appeared from nearby hiding places to chase the woman, completely ignoring Seungwan in their rush.

This was bad. She might have joined forces with the other woman and fought one man off, but now they were outnumbered and she didn’t even have a horse so, even if the driver safely returned to hers, there was still a chance that she’d just leave Seungwan alone with these dangerous men. Once their main target was gone, they’d definitely have a bone to pick with her.

Unable to do anything else, or maybe just unwilling to run away if there was anything she could do to help, Seungwan simply observed the scene as it unravelled, her heart beating with fear and worry. The woman in a very elaborate dress ran as fast as she could, doing much better than Seungwan had earlier, possibly more used to such activities. The men, in mismatched outfits of ripped leather and coarse fabric, shortened the distance between them and their target with every step, their legs hitting the ground at full speed. As they ran, the swords hung on their belts slapped against their thighs.

The… swords? Seungwan felt like the world’s biggest idiot as she finally pieced it together. Frilly dresses, horses, men with swords. No cities, no roads, no signposts.

In her defence, Seungwan argued as she continued absently following the chase, this wasn’t exactly the first thing that popped to mind in any situation. She doubted that anyone else would have found themselves in a similar scenario and immediately slapped themselves on the forehead with a cry of “Oh fudge, I’m in the fairy tale!”

She did do that, just as the woman reached her horse and began sliding one foot into a stirrup to hoist herself up. When she pulled her hand away from her eyes, she found that the bandits had also reached the horse and were holding on to the woman’s leg, trying to keep her from escaping. A little comforted by the thought that nothing too bad could happen inside a fairy-tale story, she let out a sigh of mixed relief and exasperation.

It appeared that her participation in the story would amount to being kidnapped by bandits, possibly along with this unknown woman, depending on whether she could kick off the arms around her leg and run off. Hopefully they wouldn’t spend too long in the bandits’ dirty and squalid hiding place before the king’s guard saved them. She had to admit, it wasn’t exactly where she wanted to be while the story unfolded, but she might get a pity invite to the wedding at the end.

The sound of hooves that had been filling the silence unnoticed suddenly grew stronger until half a dozen horses appeared from the same direction the woman had come, all ridden by men and women in the exact same uniform. They wore burgundy tabards over chainmail shirts, all wielding a sword on their right hand as the left held the reins. Seungwan immediately recognized the king’s guard and her heart swelled with happiness. No kidnapping! She might even be able to hitch a ride to the city!

The battle that Seungwan anticipated never took place. As soon as the guards appeared over the hill, the bandits abandoned their mission and ran as fast as they could towards a nearby copse where they jumped on their own horses. Some of the guards followed them, but a few stayed behind to look after the intended victim. Seungwan couldn’t hear them, but she saw that they were talking until the woman turned to point right at her.

She waited nervously in place as one of the guards approached on her horse. She probably wasn’t in trouble, but it would be best to act as inconspicuous as possible, to avoid drawing too much attention.

“Are you well?”, the guard asked without dismounting, her horse fretting in place as if eager to be moving again. She gave a gentle tug on the reins to calm the animal’s nervous energy and turned her friendly face to Seungwan. Up close, she seemed surprisingly young, maybe even as young as Seungwan.

“Me? Oh, just fine”, Seungwan answered in a squeaky voice. The guard looked nice enough, but she was still facing an armoured woman with a sharp sword. Not to mention the horse, which seemed to glower at her.

“Ah, it is good that you are unharmed”, the guard replied. She smiled down at Seungwan, her joy at the news so disarmingly genuine that Seungwan couldn’t help but smile back. “I am Kang Seulgi, captain of the king’s guard, and I thank you sincerely. Were it not for your deed, we would not have arrived on time”

Kang Seulgi! The brave captain of the guards and the hero who foiled the first attempt to kidnap the princess! Seungwan nearly vibrated with the excitement of meeting her. “Oh, it was nothing, I just… yelled”, she excused herself shyly, waving off her involvement with an awkward scoff. It was enough to meet the valiant warrior, let alone being praised for doing practically nothing.

“Well, it was a very timely yell”, the captain said with another smile. Could she really be as young as she looked? Didn’t it take time for guards to rise through the ranks like that? Maybe she was just that good. She certainly looked like she knew what she was doing. And it was a fairy tale, after all, so Seungwan doubted any of the main characters would be boring and middle-aged like they might realistically be. They had to be young and beautiful and charming and captain Kang Seulgi certainly fitted that profile.

The captain turned her horse to the side and scooted back on the saddle. “Would you mind riding with me, your ladyship? I must take you to the king”, she asked gallantly, reaching down to offer Seungwan her hand.

Seungwan’s sense of security, which had grown during her star-struck daze, disappeared in a flash. She took a wary step back, which Seulgi barely seemed to notice. “The king? Why?” She tried to keep her voice even, hopefully not sounding like she had something to hide. She couldn’t shake the thought that, the sooner she got to the centre of the action, the easier it would be for her to mess things up. Or maybe she was just getting nervous about seeing the princess.

“Well, I believe he would like to thank you. After all, you have just saved his daughter”, the guard said simply. Seungwan whipped her head around in an instant, eyes fixed on the prettily-dressed woman she’d saved with her shriek, who was now studying her with a curious gaze. Was that her? Oh no. Oh, this was bad. “Princess Joohyun owes you her safety”

Oh, this was very bad.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So that's our introduction to the story! I'll try to update every wednesday and saturday, unless something comes up, so stay tuned :)


	2. An offer of friendship

There was only one coherent thought on Seungwan’s mind during the trip back to the palace. She’d been in the story for less than a day and she’d already ruined the timeline. This was the day the princess took a walk on the plains surrounding the city, sped ahead of her retinue of guards and was taken off by bandits. Then, captain Kang Seulgi and her team would chase the bandits down, racing across the landscape, before finally managing to cut them off and retrieve the princess.

The end result was the same, which was always nice to remember, but the fact that she hadn’t been kidnapped at all could have untold consequences further on. The princess’s emotional state and perceived safety were important parts of the story and who knew what could happen now that she’d had a completely different experience?

She had to be very careful in her future actions and make sure to interfere as little as possible. By some miraculous event, she’d been allowed to enter this fairy tale land and witness the story first-hand. To watch as everything fell into place until the inevitable happy ending. Everything would go perfectly, with the perfect princess and the perfect prince and the perfect wedding. But Seungwan wasn’t perfect, far from it, and she worried that her presence would affect the plot in terrible ways, like a crack on the otherwise smooth surface of a mirror that eventually had it shattering into a million pieces. She could ruin everything if she wasn’t careful.

The only other thought that reached her mind, which didn’t manage to make its appearance until after they’d arrived at the palace, was that riding a horse for the first time in her life had been surprisingly easy and pain-free.

And then she was in front of the king, captain Kang by her side, the princess sitting beside her father, and she couldn’t think about anything at all. Her eyes were fixed squarely on the imposing man that faced her from his throne, mostly because she couldn’t possibly look at the princess and risk making eye contact. She might die.

“Child, you have saved my most treasured daughter, and for that you have my sincere gratitude”, the stately man said in a booming yet tender voice. Despite his age beginning to show in his greying hair and beard and in the wrinkles at the corners of his eyes and mouth, he was still a powerfully built man, and it wasn’t just the crown on his head that commanded respect. “Tell me, what is your name?”

“S-Son Seungwan, Your Majesty”, she stuttered out. He smiled at her words and, infinitely more importantly, the princess smiled as well, seeming to commit the words to memory. Seungwan could do nothing to prevent the silly grin that sprung to her face, which had the princess covering her face to hide a giggle. Back in the plains, she’d seemed older than Seungwan, but there was a youthful energy to everything she did, like the simplest things brought her overflowing pleasure.

“Ah, yes, Lord Son’s daughter. We had news of your coming, but we did not expect you here so soon” Seungwan was pleasantly surprised by the king’s words. Not only had something or someone fulfilled her wish of entering the story, but they’d gone to the trouble of giving her an identity in it, and she was even a noblewoman like she’d wanted.

Her pleasure faded as she realized she should probably explain why she was early. She wasn’t very good at improvising. Now that she considered it, she began to feel like improvising would be an essential skill in the coming times. “Did you travel along the river?”, the king suggested after a moment’s silence, and she eagerly agreed, taking a mental note of the existence of a river somewhere between her home and the capital. It would probably be important to remember things like that.

“Yes, that was exactly it, Your Majesty. Since, well, boats are faster than horses. And more comfortable. Pillows instead of saddles and all that” She forced herself to stop talking, even if her rambling words nearly had the princess giggling again. She shouldn’t be trying to make the princess giggle in the first place. She shouldn’t be doing anything with the princess in mind. The sooner she ran off to the sidelines and let the story resume its course without her interfering with its main characters, the better.

The king looked at her dubiously, his massive hand coming up to brush his beard. “Indeed. I see that you are still shaken from your trials. It is only natural. After all, even the hardy daughter of the riverside Lord is still a delicate Lady. You will need your rest to recover”, he said magnanimously as she hurriedly tried to commit his words to memory. Daughter of the riverside Lord, check. Probably should know things about rivers. Maybe she’d see if she could find some more information on Lord Son and his land. Main exports and things like that.

Realizing that she still hadn’t reacted, too busy trying to figure out her fake identity, she hurried to agree with a nod. Any excuse for strange behaviour was a good excuse, and she suspected she wouldn’t stop looking strange any time soon. Even people in the real world thought she was weird, so she didn’t expect to be much better here.

The princess leaned forward to whisper in her father’s ear. He listened intently, then smiled in agreement with her words. “I understand that you have made arrangements to stay with your distant relatives”, he told Seungwan, continuing to helpfully provide her with essential information. Staying with her distant relatives sounded like exactly what she’d wanted. Court gossip would let her know when something big happened and she’d get invited to any events through family connections. For the rest of the time, she could relax, maybe explore the city, go on another surprisingly pleasant horse ride.

“But we would be delighted if you would grace us with your presence here at the palace for a few days. I wish to have a feast to celebrate my daughter’s safe escape from today’s perilous events, and you must surely be present as the guest of honour”, the king concluded with a pleased smile, immediately shattering her lovely daydreams.

“How can I refuse my king’s generous offer, Your Majesty?” she replied miserably. She was only getting more and more involved when all she wanted was to watch safely from a distance and not mess anything up. Maybe have some cake at the wedding. Did fairy-tale medievalesque kingdoms have cake? She might have to settle for elaborate meat pies.

“I know just where Lady Son can stay”, the princess suddenly exclaimed with animation, clapping at her own idea. The king turned to her with a good-natured smile. “There is a room right by mine that has been unoccupied for years. She absolutely must stay there. You will, won’t you, Lady Son?”

She looked right at Seungwan, her beautiful brown eyes wide with expectation. Their gazes met for a second and Seungwan felt like a little hatch was opening in the back of her head and letting out all her thoughts. “Of course, Your Highness. It would be my pleasure”, she finally breathed out, letting her head drop in a sign of respect as much as an excuse to break the eye contact.

“Wonderful! I want to know all about my saviour!”, the princess declared happily.

As she dragged her feet out of the audience room and through endless corridors and staircases, following a servant to what would be her room for the next few days, she thought over just how terribly she’d messed things up.

The princess wanted to know all about her, which was bad for many reasons. First, because Seungwan would have to lie through her teeth, given that she couldn’t exactly reveal that she was a high school senior from the 21st century who’d been sucked into a book. Second, because the more they interacted, the easier it would be for Seungwan to do the wrong thing or simply be in the wrong place at the wrong time and cause a catastrophic derailing from the established plot.

Third, because the princess was happy and smiling and excited. This was the worst news of all, no matter how radiantly her glee spread through every corner of the room and ricocheted right into Seungwan’s ribcage, setting her heart beating at a chaotic rhythm. No, princess Joohyun was absolutely not supposed to be happy. She was supposed to be worn out and afraid. She was supposed to stay inside the palace for days, only going out again when the sun broke through the clouds with such blinding brightness that it infused even her darkened spirit with light. That was what it said in the book.

But her spirit wasn’t the least bit darkened. Not even dimmed a little. She was bubbling with excitement, likely to skip off to pick flowers the very next day. There was even going to be a feast to celebrate how wonderfully things had gone. And Seungwan was the guest of honour.

She leaned against the bedroom wall while a couple of maids did some quick dusting and made the bed. She pinched the bridge of her nose and groaned silently. “Fudge”, she muttered under her breath.

(…)

Something very strange happened in this fairy-tale world. The very first morning, Seungwan woke up in her canopy bed, happily stretched diagonally across its fluffy length, and found that her breath was minty fresh. Not only that, but she realized that everybody always smelled like flowers, and baths were merely for relaxing and completely optional. She was never hungry or thirsty, although she was capable of eating and drinking as much as she wanted, and she never had to go to the bathroom.

It really was a fairy tale. None of it was real, which she’d accepted at some level, but all these incongruities finally drove the truth home. It simply wasn’t real. It was strange, like a dream that kept going for far longer than it should. Still, she wouldn’t look a gift horse in the mouth. She was certainly grateful that she didn’t have to go through this entire story with everybody smelling like they were rotting, as she imagined people in medieval times did. It would be infinitely less romantic.

So all that was the bright side. The less bright side was that princess Joohyun wouldn’t leave her side. She wouldn’t lie and say that she didn’t enjoy the attention. After all, she really was beautiful and nice and attentive and well, Seungwan had already been halfway to a crush just from reading about her. Now, in front of her, having to talk to her and watch her smile, all joyful and carefree and impossibly pretty, Seungwan was like putty.

But she couldn’t befriend the princess without feeling guilty for lying to her so thoroughly, even though she hardly had a choice. And she also couldn’t avoid the princess because she had to make sure she didn’t go out until that nice, bright day came around. And then she had to make sure they went to the forest, as they were supposed to go. It was all a lot of delicate balancing and Seungwan had never been very good at that. She was more of a bull in a china shop.

Her stay of a few days stretched far beyond those few days until it became generally understood that she would be lodged at the palace for as long as she was in town. Suspiciously, it was only when she stopped making subtle comments about leaving the palace to go stay with her relatives that the long-delayed feast that kept her around began to be prepared. She really should stop underestimating the princess.

She sat in the princess’s room, gazing idly out of the window as her companion had her hair slowly brushed in a process that took agonizingly long, especially considering that Seungwan knew it was completely unnecessary. Seungwan herself hadn’t brushed her hair once since she’d arrived yet it looked better than ever. She sighed at the darkness that fell over the grassy plains, the sky covered in grey clouds that travelled in a tight formation.

“Are you very bored?”, the princess asked in her soft voice, breaking the silence that she would sometimes let stretch for hours at a time. Surprised by the sudden question, Seungwan turned to face her, trying to avoid the eye of her lady in waiting. There were a few of those, but from the way this one stared darkly at Seungwan whenever she did anything strange, it was a fair assumption that she was the one singled out in the story.

She’d also save the princess from an attempted kidnapping, further on. In an unexpected plot twist, she’d turn out to be a trained assassin, secretly acting as the princess’s bodyguard. Seungwan certainly hadn’t expected her to be a small girl, barely into her teenage years, who scowled through her chores and disappeared off to nowhere every once in a while. She also hadn’t expected that this small girl would instinctively dislike her, but that part was a little easier to understand, since she’d appeared out of nowhere under somewhat unusual circumstances.

“Of course not, Your Highness”, she said quickly. She wanted to add something reassuring but she couldn’t think of anything besides ‘How can I be bored when I have this great window to look out of?’ and that might not be very convincing.

“Shall we go for a ride?”, the princess offered with an uncertain smile. It vanished as her lady in waiting brushed past a knot rather violently, almost tugging her head back. Seungwan winced in sympathy. “The conditions aren’t ideal, but I would easily brave a bit of harsh weather for my esteemed guest”

“Oh, we can’t possibly go outside, Your Highness”, she immediately replied. It was absolutely imperative that the princess stay inside until the day the sun broke through the clouds. “What if it rains?”

“Then it’ll rain”, the princess said easily, an amused smile tugging at her lips. Her head was again jerked to the side and she sighed in impatience. “I think that is enough brushing, Lady Kim”, she informed her lady in waiting in soft tones.

“As you wish, Your Highness”, the girl replied, turning to put away the brush. In a flash, the princess was out of her high stool and seated comfortably by Seungwan’s side, clinging to her arm. Once everything was in its place, Lady Kim moved to the door, where she stood motionless.

“You may go, Lady Kim”, the princess commanded, still holding on to Seungwan tightly. The girl furrowed her brow but didn’t immediately move from her place. “If there are any attacks, Lady Son will protect me. She has done so before”, the princess added with a giggle. Unfortunately, this drew the girl’s attention to Seungwan, but she only narrowed her eyes for a moment before leaving.

“Now tell me, truly”, princess Joohyun requested, turning to Seungwan. “What would you like to do? I would hate to think that I am keeping you captive here entirely against your will, while you waste away for courtesy’s sake” Her brow furrowed as she tried to catch Seungwan’s eye and search it for the truth.

“I’m really not bored, Your Highness”, Seungwan insisted, determinedly avoiding eye contact by looking out the window. Their faces were far too close together and Joohyun’s bright eyes seemed capable of penetrating all the way to her soul and finding all her hidden secrets. She wasn’t sure what would be worse, Joohyun finding out that she was lying about her identity or that she had the most hopeless crush on her. “I just like looking at the sky”, she mumbled.

She felt the princess’s body lean even more into her, pressing against the full length of her arm as her face moved closer to the window. From the corner of her eye, Seungwan could see the way she was smiling happily. “It’s beautiful, isn’t it?”, she said with a sigh. Seungwan’s stomach twisted under the impact of those simple dreamy words.

“I’ve spent countless hours in this very seat, watching lazy little clouds drift across the sky or studying the patterns of the stars in the night. I’ve invented dozens of constellations, I’ll have to show them to you one day” Joohyun sighed again, this time sounding a bit less dreamy. “It’s… Princesses don’t get to do much that isn’t… Watching the sky is something just for me”, she said very quietly.

Seungwan didn’t speak, too afraid to break the spell. This felt like a moment of intimacy that she shouldn’t be allowed, or at least one that she should avoid. It was dangerous to let this crush on the princess grow into anything more.

“It’s even nice like this. The clouds are dark and ominous, but can you see the way lighter and darker grey mix together and grow into each other?”, the princess asked, pointing out the variations with a delicate finger. “It’s not constant, uniform blackness. It reminds me that even when things are dark, this darkness grows and changes and eventually turns into something else entirely. Like heavy clouds turning to rain”

Her head fell on Seungwan’s shoulder and Seungwan felt her shrug against her body. “We will have our feast tomorrow. Father has spared no expense in preparing it”, she said in a suddenly light tone, apparently done with the previous topic.

“I hope His Majesty hasn’t gone to too much trouble for my sake”, Seungwan replied instinctively. She noticed how Joohyun stiffened at her words, like the reminder of the formalities required between them was unpleasant. “Will you keep me company tomorrow, Your Highness? I don’t know the nobility here, I’m afraid I’d just be hiding in a corner without you”

They weren’t wise words, but the way the princess’s grip loosened slightly and one of her hands slid down to rest on hers let her know that she had been right to say them. The truth was that she couldn’t help it. She began to feel like princess Joohyun was far lonelier than the book had ever shown her to be. If Seungwan could be her friend, at least until her prince came and brought her real happiness, then that couldn’t be too bad, right?

She just hoped her heart could handle it.


	3. A rash decision

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm not quite sure what the legal drinking age would be in fairy-tale medievalesque kingdoms, but I tagged this for underage drinking just to be safe. Enjoy!

The feast was very loud and confusing. There were people everywhere, talking and laughing with voices that carried halfway across the vast hall. To be frank, Seungwan had deeply underestimated what it would mean to be by the princess’s side all evening. For hours, she was dragged from noblewoman to noblewoman, being introduced to what she could only assume was every single person of noble ascent in the planet, an unfortunate consequence of being attached to the individual that everyone wanted to talk to, at least for this one night.

Nobody was rude, of course. As long as she was the princess’s protégé, she would receive the warmest welcome and the fondest offers of visits and gifts and friendship. How much of it was genuine and how much was faked to look good in front of the princess, she could only guess.

She began to feel increasingly out of place, uncomfortable in the position that she didn’t feel like she deserved, especially with how some of the women stared harshly at her when the princess looked away. And she was growing very tired of retelling, over and over again, how she’d saved the princess by calling out to her like some gawking tourist who’d never learned how to address royalty.

To keep herself from saying too much and inevitably shoving her foot in her mouth, she began to stand back and let the princess take the lead in all conversations, only nodding at the right times and otherwise keeping busy by drinking whatever was shoved into her hand.

In a surprising twist of fate that she should have seen coming from a mile away because it really was her luck, alcohol worked just like in the real world. Soon, she swayed by Joohyun’s side as her mind whirred away, too confused by the noisy room to actually pay any attention to the conversation. Instead, she found herself puzzling over her own situation.

She’d been so busy these past weeks keeping things on track and staying at a safe distance from Joohyun, at least emotionally since physical distance seemed out of the question, that she’d never actually thought about what she was doing. She wouldn’t even consider the possibility that she wasn’t getting out of this book, because that was too scary to face, but what if she’d changed too much? What if she got out and suddenly the book was different and terrible? What if somebody found out her secret? What if it was Joohyun and she got mad at her?

The whole world spun around her for a second and suddenly she was being held up by delicate little hands. Joohyun held onto her a little tighter, careful to make it look like they were simply linking arms as before, but she must have realized the truth. She courteously ended her conversation with one of the many Ladies Kim in attendance and retreated to a less populated corner.

“I think I drank too much”, Seungwan cautiously whispered in her ear. Joohyun smiled, possibly to make it look like she’d made a joke. That would be clever.

“I have an idea”, Joohyun whispered back, causing the hairs in the back of Seungwan’s neck to rise. They began to walk, and it took a moment for Seungwan to realize that they were heading towards an exit.

She stopped the princess to lean near her ear once more. “Are we leaving?”, she asked quietly. Joohyun nodded in confirmation, tugging on her arm gently to get her moving again. “Won’t people notice you’re gone? You’re the princess”, she pointed out even as she followed along.

“Well, yes, but what can they do about it? I’m the princess”, Joohyun replied with a giggle. Seungwan couldn’t argue with that logic, so she let herself be dragged out of the noisy hall into a refreshingly cool corridor. A few guards were stationed on each side of the door and they bowed respectfully towards the couple as they left.

They managed to make it all the way up to the corridor where their rooms were located, Seungwan’s further in and Joohyun’s at the end, where the sunlight could come in from nearly all sides. She distractedly wondered if hangovers existed in this world. If they did, she was very glad she wasn’t in the sunny room.

She leaned against the wall by her door, gazing unsteadily at the princess. “Are you sure you don’t want to go back? I don’t want to create a… diplomatic incident or something of the sort”

The princess giggled, only stopping when she noticed the confusion in Seungwan’s eyes. “You don’t call me Your Highness when you’re drunk”, she finally explained, giggling again as Seungwan froze in panic.

“Oh, Y-Your Highness, I am so sorry! I didn’t mean anything by it, Your Highness, I swear!”, she apologized at once, bowing again and again as she did so. Joohyun’s hand rested lightly on her shoulder as she stepped closer, effectively stopping her from bowing unless she wanted to headbutt the princess.

“It’s perfectly fine, really. I must admit I… I like it. It makes me feel like there is more between us than the mere formalities of hierarchy”, Joohyun confessed in a tone that was far too sweet when she was standing this close to Seungwan and her hand hovered over Seungwan’s like a moth tapping against the glass pane of a lantern.

“Well, regardless of what’s between us, Your Highness”, Seungwan began, trying her best not to blush at the implication that she really hoped wouldn’t come across, “the hierarchy still exists. I couldn’t possibly…”

“Well, I can”, Joohyun cut her off decisively. “So I’ll call you Seungwan, if that’s alright with you”

“Oh. It is”, she said breathlessly.  “Your Highness”, she added after a pause, causing them both to begin giggling. She began to suspect that maybe Joohyun wasn’t entirely sober herself.

Footsteps on the stone stairway echoed through the corridor, warning them that someone was coming. The princess took a step backwards, moving out of Seungwan’s personal space just as a tall shadow rounded the corner and revealed its owner as the comparatively shorter Lady Kim.

“Your Highness, I saw that you left the feast”, she announced as she came closer. “Shall I help you prepare for bed?”

The princess gazed at Seungwan for a moment, a sliver of amusement still sparkling in her eyes but quickly fading away. It reminded Seungwan of how she spent her days, alone and probably as bored as she’d assumed Seungwan to be the day before. Maybe she’d have liked to stay downstairs a little longer, enjoy the company and the atmosphere. And now she’d just go to bed and back to her boring routine.

“Would you…”, she tried with some hesitation. Lady Kim’s eyes immediately fell on her with suspicion, which she valiantly pretended not to notice. “Would you like to show me those constellations you spoke of the other day, Your Highness?”

Joohyun’s face lit up with a bright smile. She tugged on Seungwan’s arm and pulled her to her own door without even bothering to answer. The lady in waiting followed behind them, unwilling to leave the princess unprotected at such an hour, and Seungwan preferred not to challenge this decision. She felt safer, for her own sake, if she weren’t left alone with Joohyun when she was feeling this tipsy and the moonlight cast a bewitching glow on that impossibly beautiful face.

In the end they fell asleep by the window, halfway through Joohyun’s justification of why six stars in a rectangular formation somehow formed a rabbit. Seungwan awoke in her own bed a few hours later, probably carried by a guard or, in what would surprise her a lot less than when she’d first met her, by the young and tiny Lady Kim herself. She had no trace of a hangover.

(…)

Only a few days had passed since the feast and already everything was back to normal. Seungwan sat by the window gazing into the undulating grass she hadn’t touched since the day she’d arrived at the palace. Joohyun sat on her high stool and let her hair be painfully handled by her lady in waiting, all in nearly absolute silence.

She blinked lazily, the sunlight filtering in through the window flooding her with warmth until she felt ready to nap on the spot. It took her a few seconds for the situation to register in her hazy mind.

“Your Highness!”, she exclaimed with unwarranted energy, startling the princess so that she nearly elbowed Lady Kim. “It is a beautiful day”, she added a bit awkwardly. Sure, she’d seen sunny days before. There was no need to get so excited over them. But this particular sunny day was very important. This was the day the princess was supposed to go for a walk in the forest.

Her ladies in waiting would come along, of course, and she’d become tired of them and escape their notice, only for a moment, to wander the forest paths alone. She’d find a beautiful flower, sitting all by itself in a small clearing, and she’d reach down to pick it. Then a powerful curse would seize her at once, trapping her soul in the flower, and only Lady Kim’s watchful eye would ensure that the princess was found and led to safety before the bandits that sought to capture her learned that the curse had taken effect and rushed to her location.

So it was essential that the princess go on a walk to the forest, which she would do once she realized that it was a beautiful day.

“Oh, indeed it is”, Joohyun declared peacefully, leaning forward slightly to get a better angle on the window. “How lovely” She returned to her original position and let the attack on her hair continue.

The seed of panic began to grow inside Seungwan. Did she really have to intervene? She would much rather be out of this entirely, but now it seemed like the princess would go nowhere if she didn’t say something.

She cleared her throat. “It might be a nice day for a walk. Perhaps somewhere shaded”, she said slowly, like she was musing to herself.

“There is a pleasant forest nearby”, Joohyun remarked without much interest. “If you’d like, you can borrow some of my ladies in waiting and go for a stroll”

Why was Joohyun being so difficult? Did she really have to spell it out for her? She was the princess, after all, Seungwan couldn’t go around making demands on her time. She clenched her jaw, looking out the window like the most interesting thing in the world sat just outside. “Oh, I thought perhaps you’d like to go on such a stroll, Your Highness”

She was still studying the view, watching the way the green plains faded to blue sky, when the princess dismissed Lady Kim. Once they were alone, the silence stretched until Seungwan was compelled to turn around and figure out why Joohyun wasn’t saying anything.

The princess sat on her high stool, studying her with a crooked grin. “Would you like to go on a stroll with me, Seungwan?”, she asked playfully, pronouncing her first name with a teasing quirk.

Seungwan willed her cheeks not to redden as she looked down at the ground. Hopefully she could pass it off as shyness or something other than how flustered she suddenly felt. “I would never presume on Your Highness’s time”, she said diplomatically. Distracted by Joohyun, she’d almost forgotten about the plan. Now she realized the princess would only go if she came along. Maybe she could hang back and blend into the crowd? Let Joohyun disappear around a corner like she hadn’t noticed anything? She already knew she’d let herself be dragged along with her, it was hopeless.

“Presume away, your highness never has anything interesting to do with her time”, Joohyun replied easily. She got up and studied herself in the mirror, turning one way and another. “This dress will do. There is a back exit through the kitchen, we should take it or we’ll be sure to attract a following”

“A-a following? Will Your Highness not take anyone along?”, Seungwan asked, suddenly nervous. Just the two of them? No, that was terrible. Everyone would suspect her. Lady Kim would suspect her. Oh no, she’d die at Lady Kim’s hands. She hadn’t even turned 18 yet.

“Well, I offered you my ladies in waiting and you requested me. Will you really be so greedy as to demand both?”, Joohyun pointed out skilfully. Oh, she was far too smart with her words for her own good.

“It is not a question of company, Your Highness”, she attempted with agitation. “For your own safety, it might be best if… You would be an easy target without protection”

“What better protection than my saviour?”, the princess quipped, approaching her and holding her arm with dramatic flair. “And I won’t be a target because nobody will know me. Who would chase after two noblewomen of so lowly caste that they must travel alone?”

“Anyone would know it’s you, Your Highness, really. You are the fairest in all the land, a single look at your face –“

“You didn’t”, Joohyun said curiously, cutting her off. Seungwan furrowed her brow and she continued. “When you saved me, you didn’t know who I was. I saw your look of surprise as captain Kang told you”

“That was different! I was distracted, and worn out from my journey, and I was focusing on the man coming up behind you, he was very distracting, he had a sword!” Joohyun giggled, not making any effort to refute her words. “What?”, she asked, suddenly self-conscious.

“You don’t call me Your Highness when you’re flustered”, Joohyun replied with a wicked grin. “Now come along, or we’ll waste away the daylight in these useless debates”

“As Your Highness wishes”, Seungwan conceded with a sigh.

They managed to escape the palace without drawing any attention, the two of them riding their horses leisurely to the forest without incident. Once there, they left the animals by the entrance, to graze in peace as they strolled inside.

“Are you happy now that I’ve granted your wish?”, Joohyun asked teasingly, pulling her a little closer by their linked arms.

“Yes, Your Highness”, Seungwan answered distractedly. She looked all around, searching for any indication of a nearby clearing with conspicuous flora. How was she expected to find that cursed flower? She had no idea which path the princess would have taken with her ladies in waiting.

“Must you really call me Your Highness?”, Joohyun complained in a whining voice. “There is no one here to berate you for any lack of formalities”

“It’s not about being berated, Your Highness. It is the respect you are owed”, she said simply. She craned her neck to study a fork in their path, wondering which of the branching paths seemed more likely to lead to flower-shaped traps.

“Well, what if I don’t want that respect?”, Joohyun argued, pulling Seungwan towards the right once she’d had enough of her hesitation. “What if what I truly want is for you to stop calling me Your Highness?”

Seungwan sighed, a little calmer now that Joohyun seemed to be taking the lead in terms of directions. Surely she’d lead herself to the cursed flower. “Then I suppose, if you truly want it, and nobody is around to hear me disrespect my princess… I can stop calling you Your Highness”, she slowly acquiesced.

She was surprised to feel Joohyun unlink their arms, but only a moment later she felt delicate fingers reach for hers until they were holding hands. She was holding hands with princess Joohyun. It would be beyond embarrassing to let her face break into the widest grin possible, but she was finding it very hard to fight it.

“And if I want you to call me Joohyun?”, the princess insisted. Seungwan fought back a groan.

“There is no need for me to address you by name”, she pointed out, beginning to worry that her hand would grow sweaty and disgust the princess. Could palms get sweaty in this fantasy land? Knowing her luck, the answer would be yes.

“What if you need to warn me of imminent danger? Will you call out ‘hey’ again?”, Joohyun wondered with a small grin.

She rolled her eyes dramatically, the urge to grin growing again at Joohyun’s giggles. “Then I will say ‘Your Highness’. Or, if the address truly displeases you, ‘my princess’”

“’My princess’ is better”, Joohyun admitted with a shrug. “But I would prefer my name”, she added stubbornly.

All playful debating was driven out of her mind as she realized that the clearing was up ahead. She’d managed to find it, but what should she do now? Did Joohyun need to go in there alone? How would Seungwan manage that if they were currently walking hand in hand, too absorbed by their ridiculous back-and-forth to even pay attention to their surroundings?

“If you don’t call me Joohyun”, the princess carried on in the absence of a response. “then… I will stop calling you Seungwan. You’ll be Lady Son once more”, she threatened lightly.

“As you wish, Your Highness”, Seungwan answered neutrally, her mind entirely occupied with the question of how to drive Joohyun to that clearing. She was brought back to reality by the sudden emptiness around her hands. The princess had released her and stood a short distance away.

“Seungwan, I’m serious now”, she declared in a tone that lacked all the previous amusement. “If I am anything but your princess to you, then you must call me Joohyun. At least once”, she added, almost meekly.

“But you _are_ my princess”, Seungwan pointed out with growing exasperation. She needed Joohyun to stop this ridiculous discussion and just go in the clearing, curse a touched flower and let her soulless body be dragged back to the palace. Was that so hard?

A tense silence dragged between them. “You’re right, Lady Son”, Joohyun finally said in the cold tone she probably used whenever fulfilling her duties as royalty. The distant, detached voice of a ruler. “And you are my subject. Now if you’ll excuse me, I’d like to explore on my own for a bit. You may wait here”

Seungwan wanted to apologize, she really did, but before she could say a word Joohyun had stepped between a pair of trees and straight towards the clearing where her destiny awaited. All Seungwan had to do was stay right where she was and let it happen. She’d give her ten minutes to look around, five more minutes to reach for the flower, and then she’d go after her.

The description of the curse returned to her mind unprompted. _The princess touched the flower and found her body rooted to the spot as her consciousness seemed to leave her in a blinding wave. Then all was dark. When her chaperones found her, she stood frozen in place, her eyes pitch black, showing no sign of recognition or even of life. She was rushed back to the palace and immediately taken to the king’s mage, who worked night and day to reverse the terrible curse that had befallen the innocent princess. All through the process, her frail body twisted and contorted in painful spams, the magical poison inside it fighting with all its might against the healing incantations._

She couldn’t remember anything else, because she kept replaying that last sentence. Thinking of Joohyun’s body, unconscious, unresponsive, wracked with pain inflicted by dark magic. It had been difficult to read but now, knowing Joohyun as she did, knowing how soft and untouched her body was, how unused to pain, she simply couldn’t let it happen.

She looked towards the clearing. She still had some time, if she hurried. But if she did, she’d definitely derail the story. It was one thing to stop a bandit attack a bit too early. It was another entirely to keep an attack from happening at all. If she and the princess just had a stroll and then returned to the palace, not even aware that there’d been a cursed flower at all, what irreversible effects would that have on the plot? How terribly would she mess things up if she kept meddling?

“Oh, fudge me”, she sighed in defeat. She ran after Joohyun as fast as her legs could carry her.


	4. A rude awakening

Seungwan rushed into the clearing with a heavy heart, hoping against hope that she wasn’t too late. She saw with mixed horror and delight that Joohyun had already found the cursed flower, but she hadn’t yet touched it.

“Joohyun!”, she called out, hoping to catch her attention. The princess turned, but her face was still set in contemptuous distance.

“Is this the proper way to address your princess, Lady Son?”, she demanded archly, her cold words barely wounding Seungwan when all she could think was that Joohyun was safe for now. She only had to keep her attention on herself as she approached.

“Joohyun, I’m truly sorry. I never meant to hurt you. I understand why you don’t want there to be barriers of formality between us, but the truth is that these barriers aren’t born from my words”, she explained, well aware that they both knew this. But if she said it, maybe Joohyun would understand that she wanted the same. “They will still be there, even if I call you Joohyun. Even if I call you… Hyun”, she added with a forced chuckle, far too horrified at her own daring to find any amusement in the situation.

Joohyun seemed equally shocked at the nickname, only staring intensely at Seungwan. The latter stepped closer, almost within reach to pull the princess away from the flower and far from the danger it posed. “No matter how close we are, how close we become, you’ll still be my princess. No force in this world can change that. We’ll have to… work around it. But there is no use in pretending it isn’t there”

She paused, legs nearly buckling under the weight of the suffocating silence. Joohyun took a step and immediately she was jumping forward to seize her hands. She couldn’t risk Joohyun making any sudden movements and touching that flower.

They stood facing each other, both hands held tightly. Joohyun’s eyes were still wide, confused, searching, and Seungwan could relate because she felt just as confused by the situation. What was she doing? She glanced to the side and her conviction returned at the sight of that odious plant. They had to go back as soon as possible.

Just as she tugged on Joohyun’s hands, wondering how to suggest returning to the palace, the princess turned to follow her eyes. A smile painted itself on her face as she remembered what she’d been doing and her fingers disentangled themselves from Seungwan’s hold. As much as she appreciated Joohyun being distracted from her strange actions, this was the exact opposite of what she wanted.

“Perhaps we should return to the palace”, She blurted out before the princess could make a move, reaching out blindly and managing to wrap her hands around Joohyun’s elbow. “It’s getting late”

“Don’t be silly, Seungwan”, Joohyun replied easily, although she didn’t try to pull away. “We still have hours before the sun sets. I’d like to walk a little longer”, she said with a pleased smile, taking in the trees around them at a glance before returning her eyes to their original target. One of her hands rested over Seungwan’s and she stepped towards the flower, leaning down to study it closer.

She couldn’t win an argument with a princess. If Joohyun wanted that flower, there was nothing Seungwan could say to dissuade her. So how could she protect the princess from its evil effects? She took a deep breath, thinking quickly and coming up with possibly the worst idea she’d had so far.

“Would my princess like a flower?”, she asked in her cheesiest tones. Joohyun’s back straightened as she studied Seungwan with confusion, so she threw in a wink for good measure.

The princess groaned dramatically, making a show of pulling her arm away despite not actually letting her hand drop from Seungwan’s. “Your princess is perfectly capable of picking her own flowers”, she replied with poorly-concealed amusement, the coldness of before now only a playful imitation.

“But what would the people think if they knew that she’d done something herself when there was a perfectly good underling standing by to follow her every command?”, Seungwan insisted in her best attempt at a light tone. She felt a cold sweat begin to gather in the back of her neck, but she couldn’t back down now.

“You are right!”, Joohyun gasped out with dramatic intensity. “They would think their princess was most improper, and unfit to rule”

“Yes, from lack of practice!”, Seungwan joined in easily, concealing the sigh of relief that escaped her at her success.

“Very well, my underling, I command you to pick a flower for me”, the princess declared in her most regal voice. Seungwan giggled, pulled her out of the way and reached for the only flower in the clearing.

She froze, rooted to the spot, and could only watch as the world around her narrowed to a single point, then to nothing at all.

(…)

She awoke in a strange place. It was a circular room, every wall covered in shelves that were filled with all sorts of items. On some, there were books. On others, transparent containers of all shapes and sizes, containing diffuse objects that she couldn’t identify. The rest were filled with colourful rocks and gems, strangely shaped devices and a variety of items that she couldn’t begin to name.

She saw all this at a glance, before a face suddenly appeared over her field of vision. It was a young woman, around 16, wearing an oversized hat that kept falling over her eyes, so that one of her hands was always pushing it back. Any other observations were cut short as all of Seungwan’s attention was drawn to the fact that this woman’s hair was bright red, even her eyebrows sharing the same garish colour.

“Oh, you’re up”, the strange woman said without any surprise. Like it was everyday people awoke from their curses into her little circular room. Or maybe this was the curse and the woman was the devil or something. Waiting for Seungwan to arrive so she could torture her.

“Am I cursed?”, she blurted out, her tongue strangely unresponsive. She finally began to move, noticing that her entire body seemed stiff and sore, like she’d been exercising heavily for three days straight.

“That’s a strange way to phrase it”, the woman replied. She moved out of Seungwan’s field of vision, but she could still be heard shuffling some things around somewhere to Seungwan’s right. She slowly turned her neck to follow her movements and found her simply putting things away in even more shelves.

“You were under a curse. Now I have saved you from the curse. I wouldn’t say you _are_ cursed, in the permanent sense. Why, do you feel particularly unlucky in your daily life? Persecuted by misfortune? I can run a few tests”, she informed Seungwan as she moved from shelf to shelf. After everything was put away, she returned to Seungwan’s side.

“Who are you?”, Seungwan decided to ask, curiosity winning over fear of the unknown.

“The king’s mage, obviously”, she scoffed indignantly. “Who else could have saved you in three days flat?”

“It’s been three days?”, Seungwan asked with horror. Joohyun must have been so worried for her. Joohyun… She’d managed to bring her back to the palace and saved her life in the process. What would have happened if the bandits had found her and brought her back to their leader? When he found out that she wasn’t the princess, she couldn’t imagine they’d be too bothered about sending her back home. She really should have thought of these issues before reaching for that flower like some dumb hero.

“Well, that’s ungrateful of you. You try breaking a soul-stealing curse, see how long it takes you”, the mage huffed under her breath. She took out a leather-bound book and began to scribble something on it. “Maybe I’ll leave your soul in the stupid flower next time, teach you to appreciate what you have”

“Sorry, I didn’t mean it like that”, Seungwan quickly apologized, feeling only a little like an idiot for doing so. “I was just surprised to learn about this whole thing in the first place. I was picking a flower and suddenly everything went black and I was in a strange room”

“It’s not strange, it’s quirky. Shows individuality”, the mage stated defensively. “And how surprised could you be? The first thing you asked when you woke up was whether you were cursed”

She had a point there. “Well, you know, if you live in a world with magic, whenever anything weird happens you assume it’s magic. And when it’s a bad kind of weird, it must be a curse. Right?”

The woman shrugged, but didn’t bother responding. She was clearly invested in whatever she was scribbling. Seungwan rubbed her sore neck, suddenly intrigued by a new question. “Um, mage?”, she began hesitantly. The woman didn’t seem too pleased with the address, but she didn’t protest it. “Wasn’t I in any… pain? While you were treating me?”

“Well, yes, of course, your body suffered tremendously while I saved your life”, the mage said with an unbothered shrug. “But your soul was in the flower, so you didn’t feel anything. You must be sore, though”, she added thoughtfully. Seungwan let out a small sigh of relief at the information. So the princess hadn’t suffered under the curse. That was good. The book really should have made that more obvious, though. It would have made some things a lot simpler.

A door swung open, startling Seungwan and interrupting the conversation, and she carefully turned her neck the other way to face the intruder. It was Lady Kim, casually biting into an apple as she stepped into the cluttered room.

“Hey, Sooyoung, how’s the – “ She paused, stared right at Seungwan. Seungwan stared back, trying not to show fear. “She’s awake! How many times did I tell you to let me know right away when she wakes up? Her Highness has been asking me about her every five minutes!”

Seungwan’s heart swelled at the words, elated to hear about the princess’s concern. She really wasn’t mad at her, then. That was good. She didn’t know what she’d do if Joohyun were mad. Probably apologize, but she was sure that apologizing to a princess must have an entire ritual associated. She couldn’t just drop by and say sorry, surely.

“She literally just woke up, will you calm down?”, Sooyoung requested with impatience, returning Seungwan’s attention to the present and away from hypothetical worries. “I was writing you a note, see? Just like we agreed” She waved her little book around with raised eyebrows, but Lady Kim didn’t seem convinced at all.

“Please, you think I don’t recognize your chimera notebook?”, she said testily, stepping closer to the table where Seungwan lay and kicking an empty bottle in the process. “You were just writing down some weird new animal hybrid you came up with, weren’t you?”

Seungwan had already begun to tune out the strange conversation, her thoughts once more focused on Joohyun. She didn’t know how she ever could have been happy at Joohyun’s concern. If she really had been asking about her so often, then she must have been so worried and upset over her. She had to find her, as soon as possible, and show her that everything was fine.

“They’re not weird, they’re cute”, Sooyoung argued, clutching the notebook to her chest. “I want to mix a bunny with a piglet, but I need to figure out which parts to choose from which animal to maximize adorableness”, she elaborated, this time to Seungwan, who absolutely did not want to hear about any of this, not to mention how she wasn’t even sure what they were discussing.

“That is the most useless hobby and it never works anyway. Can’t you stick to making potions and casting protective spells?”, Lady Kim cut in with a bored huff, appearing to remember her apple as she reached for another bite. Could Seungwan leave in the middle of the conversation? Would that be rude?

“Can’t you stick to dressing the princess and brushing her hair?”, Sooyoung spat back. The younger girl poked out her tongue at her, which she quickly retributed. Right, this was going nowhere and she really did have to go now.

She carefully pushed herself upright, moving her arms from one side to the other to ease into her sore body. Then she swung her legs over the side of the table. This seemed to bring the others’ attention back to her when she already appeared to have been forgotten.

“Oh, are you going?”, Sooyoung asked disinterestedly. Lady Kim turned to face her, and Seungwan did not appreciate the attention. Couldn’t they go back to arguing over whatever it was? Chimeras, she thought she remembered hearing.

“Yes, I was going to go tell Her Highness I’m alright”, she said meekly. Both women looked at one another and shrugged.

“Great, save me a trip. Tell Her Highness I got held up and couldn’t accompany you back”, Lady Kim remarked casually, stepping around the table to settle on a nearby chair with a graceless flop. These two weren’t the most hospitable, were they?

“Anyway, your hobby is gross and doesn’t cast you in a very flattering light. You should try making friends instead of sitting alone in this tower and putting duckie feet on beavers or whatever your last project was”, Lady Kim carried on without pause, her attention already back to the mage, who didn’t even seem phased by the harsh words.

Seungwan quickly reached for the door before she could get trapped in another round of this. “Hey, do you even know where you’re going?”, Sooyoung called out, stopping Seungwan in her tracks. She sighed as Seungwan shook her head. “You’re at the top of the mage’s tower. You’ll have to go down a lot of stairs, then you’ll find an opening in the wall that leads you out of a painting in an abandoned corridor. It branches off of the main hall, so just go along it and if anyone sees you tell them you got lost”

“And don’t mind her, she’s been up here so long, she’s forgotten how to talk to people”, Lady Kim added jokingly, snorting as the mage reached out to smack the back of her head. At least she seemed a bit friendlier. The fact that Seungwan had risked her life for Joohyun seemed to have finally taken her out of the suspicious list, which was one less concern.

Seungwan travelled across the secret passages with a heart nearly as heavy as her tired limbs. She was safe and she was about to bring the good news to Joohyun, but she wasn’t sure how to get the story back on track. After two nearly successful attempts to steal away his daughter, the king would be wary or letting her out and eager to assign guards to her at all times, not to mention how the princess herself would be changed by the events.

Instead, nobody seemed very worried about the princess’s safety and Joohyun herself might be chastened by Seungwan’s experience but would still be far from the desperate princess she should be. Once the final kidnapping attempt took place, she should be surrounded with guards, to the point that she would risk her life in an attempt to run away from home and recover her freedom.

The way things were, there was a definite chance that the last attempt to take Joohyun wouldn’t lead to such drastic consequences. And then what would Seungwan do? Could she really convince the princess to run off into the unknown? She hadn’t even let her touch a measly little cursed flower, so how would she stand by while Joohyun got herself captured by bandits?

“Fudge”, she mumbled to herself, breathless from all the stairs. Something told her a lot more would go wrong before she finally managed to get the princess to her happily ever after.


	5. A long-awaited guest

Joohyun opened her bedroom door before Seungwan was even done knocking. “Yerim, did you – Oh, Seungwan!”, she exclaimed happily, capturing her in a tight hug. It was short, but enough for Seungwan to be stunned into silence.

“I was so worried! You reached for that flower and suddenly your entire body was like stone, your eyes were pure black, you wouldn’t react to my touch”, the princess gasped out in a single breath. She paused to inhale, hands gripped tightly around Seungwan’s. “I brought you to the palace at once, but you were taken to the mage’s tower and I wasn’t allowed to visit you. I had Lady Kim bring me news of any development, but it simply wasn’t the same”

“I should have been there, by your side”, Joohyun continued with a heavy voice. Seungwan wanted to stop her from rambling on, ease her guilt, but her mind was still fuzzy from the curse, or maybe just from going down all those stairs, and she could barely keep up with Joohyun’s speech, let alone interrupt it.

“It was all my fault, if I hadn’t ordered you to pick that flower, then –“

“Then you would have picked it yourself”, Seungwan said simply, finally managing to cut in as concern for Joohyun sharpened her mind. “I don’t regret what I did”

The princess bit back an answer, chewing on her bottom lip unhappily. “Seungwan, are we friends?”, she asked timidly, the strange question awakening Seungwan’s curiosity. She nodded in confirmation, squeezing Joohyun’s hands for emphasis, and the princess swallowed nervously before carrying on. “The prince will be arriving soon. Once he does, preparations will begin for our marriage. It should only take a few months and then we’ll return to his kingdom together”

She paused, clenched her jaw in a show of uncertainty that Seungwan had never seen in her before. Why was she acting like this? “Will you come with us? You can be one of my ladies in waiting, the only one, even. You wouldn’t have to brush my hair or dress me or any of those silly things. I can do them myself. But will you come?”, she requested earnestly. The offer dug itself into Seungwan’s chest with painful pressure and she realized in an instant that something terrible had happened.

She didn’t have a crush on Joohyun. Whatever it was, whatever feelings they might be, had grown far beyond any innocent infatuation. The thought of following Joohyun and her husband along in their happiness, of standing just a step behind, just a step beneath them, filled her heart with ash and cinders. She couldn’t possibly imagine it, just as she couldn’t imagine standing by as Joohyun left without her.

She opened her mouth to answer, but she was silenced by Joohyun’s finger pressing against her mouth. “I don’t ask this of you as your princess. I ask it as your friend”

“I told you before, Joohyun”, she began, the princess’s finger flying off her lips as soon as they began to move, like it had been jolted by the motion. “The two can’t be so readily separated”, she reminded her gently. She doubted she’d be around after the wedding, not when that was the end of the story, but Joohyun’s request had only reminded her of how everything would change from the moment the prince arrived. Joohyun didn’t need to leave the kingdom to step outside Seungwan’s reach. Any day now, she’d be gone.

“If I were not your princess, but merely your friend, would you say yes?”, Joohyun asked desperately. Her intensity threw Seungwan off-balance, something in her words making her uneasy even as she struggled with her own emotions. The princess didn’t just sound eager to keep her friend, she sounded almost… scared.

Why was it so imperious that Seungwan travel with her? “I know these last few days have frightened you”, she said instead of answering Joohyun’s question, wondering if the princess was afraid of another attack, “but once the prince is here, he will make sure to keep you safe. He can ensure your protection much better than I ever could”, she added encouragingly. She hoped the princess would understand that she’d safe even without her, but Joohyun didn’t seem cheered up by her words at all. She only began to chew her bottom lip again, face set in a frown.

A strange thought ran through Seungwan’s mind, one that she hadn’t considered once because it didn’t make sense at all. “Joohyun, do you want to marry the prince?” It was their fairy tale. The story of how Joohyun and the prince met, two beautiful specimens of royalty, and gladly joined their futures together, to live happily ever after. So surely she wanted to marry him, right?

The princess seemed confused by her question. “Of course. I want to unite our kingdoms, to perform my duty as a princess”, she said simply.

A growing concern, much worse than any she had felt since she’d arrived, began to bubble inside her. Could it really be? The meaning of Joohyun’s distress shone with sudden clarity, but still Seungwan couldn’t help but wonder if she was only seeing what she wanted to see, even if she desperately didn’t want to see it. “But will it make you happy?”, she insisted.

Joohyun remained silent for a long time, only looking at her, her gaze unnervingly intense. Seungwan wasn’t sure whether she was thinking or searching her, like the answers would be found somewhere inside Seungwan.

“If you’re with me, I’ll be happy”, she said at last, nodding at her own words. Seungwan’s head began to swim, exhaustion and confusion combining in the most terrible way. She didn’t know what to do. She didn’t know what to think. She didn’t want it to mean what she thought it meant, because that would make things so terribly complicated.

She lost her balance for a moment and once again, it was Joohyun holding her up with her dainty little hands. “You must be tired, you should rest”, she said gently, abandoning the conversation without hesitation to take Seungwan’s arm and guide her to her room. “I’ll watch over you, would that be alright? It’s all I’ve wanted to do, these three days and nights”

Seungwan knew she should be alone, that she needed solitude to truly think over everything and make any sense of it. But Joohyun’s pleading eyes were hard to resist, especially now that she looked so vulnerable, gazing earnestly at Seungwan like her proximity was all she could want in this moment. And Lady Kim wasn’t there, Seungwan realized with a start.

In the book, the princess’s faithful lady in waiting had remained by her side all through her recovery from the terrible curse, assisting the king’s mage. Then they had returned to her room, where she had watched over her carefully, keeping her safe from all threats. Now Lady Kim was up in that tower chatting to Sooyoung, as relaxed as the rest of the palace. Would it be safe for Joohyun to return to her room alone?

No, she must go with Seungwan. Nobody would look for her there. She would be safer. “Yes, I would like that”, she breathed out, letting Joohyun carry her inside the room and to her bed.

Joohyun settled herself by her side, sitting on the bed and keeping a watchful eye on its occupant. Closing her eyes, Seungwan pretended to fall into slumber as she considered all the issues that she needed to settle, wilting at how they pressed on her from all sides.

She began with the question of how to have Joohyun as surrounded by protective forces as she should be at this point, well aware that she was orbiting what really sat on her mind. Still, it wasn’t a question she should ignore. She’d have to find a way to convince the king, or maybe just the captain of the guards, or even Lady Kim if there was no other way.

However, that point would really depend on the second issue. If she tried to follow the original story, Joohyun would end up marrying the prince. The book had clearly stated that they lived happily ever after, but it seemed evident to Seungwan that things might not be that simple. His arrival was not something that the princess looked forward to and she began to wonder if his presence would change her mind about him.

Because all this hung on the final issue, the one that she hardly dared to consider, hardly dared to imagine. What did Joohyun really want? Could it be, could it really be, wasn’t Seungwan beyond foolish to even think of the possibility? Why would Joohyun want anything from her? What could she possibly have to give her? What did she have that was worthy of the princess? Worthy of her presence, of her company. Of her love.

Could it be love?

She felt a soft hand press lightly against her forehead, smoothing the creases that had formed there as she mulled over the mess she’d made of this fairy tale and of her own heart. She tried to relax her face, satisfied when Joohyun’s fingers left her forehead to run slowly through her hair, then down, following the curve of her cheek until Joohyun’s hand was cupping her jaw. The touch was cool, soothing amid the confusion that swarmed in her mind.

Then Joohyun’s thumb travelled across Seungwan’s cheek, its path impossibly slow, finally arriving at the corner of her lips. It paused there, signalling Joohyun’s uncertainty, immobile for so long that Seungwan thought she must have simply settled it there. But then, almost as soon as Seungwan had reached this conclusion, it started moving again, hesitantly following the line of her lower lip.

Seungwan’s eyes shot open, startling Joohyun so thoroughly that she nearly fell off the bed. She tried her best to play it off, casually asking if she’d woken Seungwan, to which the latter replied with a weak nod. She might feel guilty for interrupting Seungwan’s rest, but that would still be better than letting her know that Seungwan had been awake through all of that.

She knew what it was. It was the worst thing that could possibly happen. It was so thoroughly terrible that she couldn’t come up with a single excuse for why it took all her willpower to keep from smiling. She shouldn’t be smiling because this shouldn’t be happening. It couldn’t happen. She couldn’t let it happen, she just couldn’t.

“I should… let you rest”, Joohyun finally said, once she’d recovered from her surprise. She squeezed Seungwan’s hand in an uncertain gesture, then got up, disappearing behind the curtains that hid the room from view. A door opened, then closed. Seungwan took a deep breath that did nothing to clear the knot in her throat.

“Well, fudge”, she said to the empty room, her lips still tingling with the ghost of Joohyun’s touch. Now she’d done it. Now the princess had fallen for her.

(…)

Prince Park Bogum arrived on a beautiful, sunny day. The pleasantly warm weather contrasted strangely with the cool reception he received from the princess. She wasn’t rude, far from it. No matter how terrible her inner turmoil, the etiquette drilled into her throughout her childhood would never allow for outright rudeness.

She was simply a bit… cold. She went through every formality, smiled when she should smile, giggled when she should giggle, listened intently when the prince spoke. But it all seemed so clearly performed for his sake. So empty of deeper meaning.

Of course, that might simply be the way Seungwan saw it. Armed with the knowledge that only she had, she knew that the princess wasn’t that interested, that she couldn’t possibly be when there was so much on her mind. At least she hoped, even if she knew she shouldn’t.

She drowned her confusing sorrows in another glass of the deceptively light drink that was being served to all guests at the great feast in the honour of prince Bogum’s arrival. Forcefully separated from Joohyun by the demands of duty, she sat alone at a table and tried not to get drunk too quickly, which was hard to avoid when her options were drinking or staring into nothing. Or worse, staring at the prince and the princess, a beautiful little pair, performing their royal duties flawlessly.

“Lady Son. I hope I’m not interrupting”, a somewhat familiar voice sounded by her ear. She turned lazily and found herself face to face with the captain of the guards.

“Oh, hello, captain. And don’t worry, there is nothing to interrupt”, she declared cheerfully, because if she said it in any other tone it would make it seem like her loneliness hadn’t been a choice.

“Please, call me Seulgi”, the captain insisted pleasantly.

“Very well then, Seulgi. And you can call me Seungwan”, she replied with a wide grin. “So, what brings you to this corner of the hall, Seulgi? Did you seek my company? Perhaps my help in relaying a request to the princess”, she added with a wink. She felt like she might be going a bit too strong on the playful angle, but she was teetering on a dangerous line between happy drunk and sad drunk and she’d like to avoid ending the night in alcohol-fuelled tears.

“Well, to be honest, it is neither”, Seulgi confessed shyly. “I came here with a request for you, Lady So- Seungwan”, she corrected herself quickly.

Seungwan chuckled at the attempt, patting the guard’s arm reassuringly. “I am all ears, captain Seulgi”, she said with a smirk. “Perhaps you’d like to sit down before making this request. These loud celebrations make conversation at a distance quite difficult”

Seulgi nodded and sat by Seungwan’s side, keeping a respectful distance between them. “I wanted to speak with you regarding Her Highness’s safety”, she began, glancing towards the princess as she spoke. “The two recent incidents resulted in no harm to Her Highness, but this was entirely by chance, and the same cannot be said of you, Seungwan”, she carried on, cringing slightly at addressing her so informally. Seungwan wanted to rest her hand on Seulgi’s arm for support, but she felt that this might only make the guard more uncomfortable, so she didn’t.

“However, I fear that this luck might have emboldened Her Highness. The truth is that the situation is concerning. Two attempts on the princess’s safety in such a short time should not be brushed aside, regardless of the consequences”, Seulgi insisted with furrowed brows, her lips curved into a concerned frown. Seungwan fought back the urge to giggle at the adorable sight. “The fact that Her Highness would so easily leave the palace without an escort is troubling”

“I see”, Seungwan declared with a playful display of gravity that was gone in a flash. “So I was correct in my initial assumption. You wished to relay a request to the princess. After all, you want me to tell her to be more careful”

She giggled at her witty words, pleased with the way they stumped Seulgi for a moment as she searched for the words to justify herself. Seulgi wanted her to convince Joohyun that she needed more guards. That she must warn them whenever she wanted to go out.

“Oh, fudge”, she muttered as she realized that she was responsible for ensuring the heavy guard that should be following Joohyun at this very moment. Why must she go through everything herself, pushing uphill every step of the way to keep this story on track? She began to feel like the story itself didn’t want to be told. And all this so she could marry Joohyun off to that stupid beautiful prince with the perfect hair and the nice jawline.

“What’s fudge?”, Seulgi asked with curiosity, explanations apparently abandoned in favour of asking strange questions.

“What? Fudge? It’s just a bad word. I shouldn’t have said it, do forgive me”, she said quickly, reaching for her drink.

“Well, yes, I understood that from the context. But what does it mean? I’ve never heard it”, Seulgi insisted.

Right. Fairy-tale medievalesque kingdoms wouldn’t have fudge, would they? “It’s, uh, a type of fish. A river fish. Mud fish. Hence the name” She took a deep breath to stop herself from babbling on, but Seulgi only looked at her expectantly, so she continued. “It’s common near my home and it’s very bland and tasteless. A terrible fish. So now we use it as a curse word”

“Interesting”, Seulgi drawled, looking truly fascinated by the concept. “Fudge, huh? It’s strange that it would be a tasteless fish, because it sounds so tasty. Fudge” She suddenly stopped and grew red under Seungwan’s scrutiny, probably realizing that she’d been cursing happily in front of a lady.

“I will speak to Her Highness”, Seungwan said mercifully, setting a hand gently on one of Seulgi’s to draw her attention. The mention of Joohyun seemed to turn her head irresistibly, drawing her gaze back to the princess like a magnet. “I can’t promise that she’ll listen, but I’ll try”, she concluded distractedly as the prince leaned in to say something near Joohyun’s ear and she giggled at his words.

When she turned back to Seulgi, the guard nodded, relieved and grateful. Seungwan felt the satisfaction of a job well done spreading inside her, bravely fighting back the urge to step into sad drunk territory. “Now, would you like to dance?”, she asked cheerfully, getting to her feet and immediately stumbling forwards and nearly crashing into the captain.

“I think dancing might not be the best idea right now”, Seulgi suggested diplomatically. Seungwan considered her words, one hand resting on her shoulder for support. She continued considering them as Seulgi got to her feet and carefully held her arms, guiding her towards the exit. She was still thoughtfully nodding when they stepped out of the hall, although by this point she’d forgotten what she was supposed to be mulling over.

Seulgi supported her weight with one hand as she scratched her own head with the other, probably unsure what to do with this intoxicated noblewoman. Luckily, Joohyun left the hall shortly after them, head whipping from side to side until she stopped the pair.

“Seungwan, are you alright?”, she asked with concern that turned to puzzlement when Seungwan raised her free hand to offer her a thumbs-up.

“Lady Son had a bit too much to drink”, Seulgi explained for her. “I can take the lady to her room, but I don’t know where it is”, she admitted sheepishly.

Joohyun tried to insist on carrying Seungwan herself, but once it became clear that she would have to drag her full weight up several flights of stairs, she had to give in and leave the carrying to Seulgi. In the end, all three made their way to Seungwan’s room, where Seulgi said her goodbyes with many unnecessary apologies and bows mixed in, and the princess took Seungwan inside to make sure she reached the bed.

Safely tucked in, Seungwan sighed in bliss, surrounded by all the things she loved. Joohyun and the lovely canopy bed that made her feel like she was sleeping on a tiny private island.

“Seungwan?”, a voice sounded from far away, dragging her painfully away from pleasant canopy dreams and the wonderful feeling of soft, fresh sheets enveloping her like a fluffy cloud. With a herculean effort, she managed to hum in indication that she was listening. “Are you angry with me?”

She frowned, confused at the words. She even managed to open her eyes, which landed on the most beautiful face she had ever seen, unpleasantly scrunched up in worry. “Why would I be angry?”, she asked with genuine confusion. “I love you”, she sighed dreamily. Then she drifted off to sleep.


	6. A bittersweet success

The next morning, Seungwan realized for the first time in her life that the negative side effects of alcohol were an essential part of the experience. Sure, the headaches and nausea were never pleasant, but there was a sense of safety in blacking out. The assurance that, once you’d reached a certain point of ridiculous intoxicated behaviour, your brain would carefully tuck away your actions in a corner of your memory that you’d never be able to access again.

It allowed for a certain deniability. If you didn’t remember it and nobody involved mentioned it, you could almost pretend it had never happened. When everything remained carved in your memory with perfect clarity, then you couldn’t help but face what you’d become. The terrible things you’d said and done.

“Are you certain you’re not angry with me?”, the princess asked in a whisper. Seungwan suppressed the urge to groan. That was another benefit of hangovers. All the groaning could be attributed to the way the sunlight hit Seungwan’s eyes and made her want to vomit, instead of the truth, which was much trickier.

“I’m absolutely certain. I’m not angry. There is no reason for me to be angry”, she enunciated carefully, trying not to let her impatience show. She should be glad that this was what Joohyun focused on, rather than her sleepily slurred confession of love, which the princess had clearly dismissed as drunken nonsense, but it was frustratingly difficult to convince Joohyun she wasn’t angry with her when it must be obvious that she was angry with something. But how could she explain that she was just mad at herself?

Joohyun looked around the room, brow furrowing at the way her ladies in waiting sat in the corners, busying themselves and pretending not to care about the princess’s hushed conversation. She’d wanted to dismiss them, but Seungwan knew that the final bandit attack would come any day, now that the prince had arrived. Lady Kim had to be in the room with Joohyun at all times, or they’d risk her being taken away on the one occasion when a bandit attack was supposed to fail.

And it did help that the presence of gossiping women in the room kept Joohyun from talking about anything too personal. It was a relief for Seungwan to know that she wouldn’t have to worry with setting boundaries after that lip-touching incident in her room. She knew very well that she would have done nothing to stop Joohyun, had she decided to take her exploration further, and she simply couldn’t let anything happen with the princess.

“Then why were you doing those things with captain Kang at the feast?”, Joohyun pushed, suddenly avoiding eye contact. Her words caught Seungwan completely by surprise, a dozen questions of her own springing to mind.

“What things?”, she asked in a hushed voice. She’d been a little drunk, but she wasn’t aware that she’d embarrassed herself so obviously that even the princess would notice.

“Laughing and winking at her and touching her arm”, Joohyun enumerated reluctantly, voice so quiet that Seungwan could barely hear her. Her hands had abandoned Seungwan’s and were busy squeezing each other in her lap.

Was Joohyun jealous? Had Seungwan accidentally made the princess jealous? And did Joohyun think it had been on purpose? That Seungwan had been upset by the princess’s absence and turned to the nearest attentive woman? All these thoughts raced through her mind before she realized something else entirely.

“You noticed that? Weren’t you supposed to be paying attention to the prince?” The thought was as pleasing as it was disheartening. Seungwan couldn’t help but bask in the knowledge that Joohyun had had her eyes on her, even when they were apart, but she knew this was a line of thought she shouldn’t follow.

Joohyun waved away the question without hesitation. “Oh, he’s very boring. By the time he gets to the middle of a story, I already know how it’s going to end” Despite her best efforts, Seungwan couldn’t help the foolish grin that sprang to her face. It felt, in way, like Joohyun had chosen her over the prince. Even if it couldn’t last, it still left a warm feeling inside her chest.

“You didn’t answer my question”, Joohyun stated after a moment of silence. “About captain Kang”, she added helpfully, still refusing to look Seungwan in the eye.

“Oh” She really hadn’t. And Joohyun really did want to know. “I’m just a friendly drunk. It didn’t mean anything”, she admitted awkwardly. The way Joohyun’s face lit up in response filled her with equal parts glee and ominous concern. Should the conversation be heading this way? Should she be encouraging Joohyun?

“I thought about that day. When I watched over you as you slept” She shouldn’t, she definitely shouldn’t be encouraging her. Joohyun’s face was flushed and yet she showed no intention of stopping without voicing whatever it was she’d thought about, and the worst part was that Seungwan’s heart began to beat violently in her chest, just as invested in hearing what came next.

“I wanted something and I didn’t know what but now I do”, the princess carried on. Seungwan felt herself sink into her seat in the hopes that she could burrow through the floor and right out of this conversation, at least until she felt a little more composed. “I want to kiss you”, Joohyun concluded in the lowest voice, nearly whispering in Seungwan’s ear, and she couldn’t help the violent shudder that the words elicited.

Joohyun spoke so boldly, like she didn’t even consider the possibility of rejection. Then again, as a princess, she probably wouldn’t have had much experience with the concept. Or maybe she’d just taken Seungwan’s confession a bit more seriously than she’d thought. The fact that she knew her feelings were reciprocated made things very different and very difficult. How was Seungwan supposed to keep the princess away like this?

“Joohyun, please, there’s people”, she pleaded in a muffled squeak, hands squeezing tightly against the edge of her seat. Joohyun’s hand was back on hers, settled lightly over the whitening knuckles, and the touch seemed to burn her, rooting her to the spot as effectively as that cursed flower.

“I’ll dismiss them”, the princess offered, her voice deliciously alluring. She turned to raise an arm, but Seungwan quickly clung to it, pulling it down.

“Absolutely not”, she whispered harshly. She had one job and that was to make sure Joohyun was protected when the bandits came jumping in through the windows. Nothing would come in the way of that, not even silly infatuations and dreams of kissing a princess that wasn’t hers to kiss. “You can’t be alone in your room. It’s not safe”

“I won’t be alone”, Joohyun pointed out with a smirk. Seungwan hated how her insides seemed to liquefy at the princess’s words, wanting nothing more than to eagerly comply. She might have, if she was the one being targeted by bandits, but she couldn’t risk Joohyun’s safety.

“Enough of this, please, Your Highness”, she pleaded, knowing that the formal address would cool Joohyun’s excitement. She patted the princess’s hand to remove any pain that the words might inflict. “Shouldn’t you be worrying about the prince?”

“Oh”, Joohyun said with a small frown. “The prince. I’d forgotten about him” Another jolt of excitement flew through Seungwan, filling her with petty glee that she absolutely should be resisting at least a little.

“You should try to avoid doing that”, Seungwan pointed out playfully, shoving back her unhelpful jealousy. “Now, do you really find him boring?” She’d mostly asked it to change the subject, but it didn’t make the question any less important. Now that Joohyun had met the prince, she needed to determine whether they had any chance of being happy together. Sure, there was this thing with Seungwan, but they both knew it couldn’t go anywhere. Joohyun would marry a prince or nobody at all and Seungwan just had to figure out which was the better option.

Before Joohyun could answer, there was a frightful crash as every window in the room broke into pieces, one bandit jumping in through each opening. The ladies closest to the door rushed out to call the guards while Seungwan instinctively shielded the princess with her body, throwing an arm in front of her own face to protect it from the shower of glass.

Something flashed in the corner of her eye and she turned to find that Lady Kim had ripped off her dress, revealing practical fighting clothes underneath it. She wielded a pair of daggers with confidence and she expertly slashed through the air, catching the bandits’ large swords between the two blades and flipping them off their hands with ease. Soon, all three attackers were backed into a corner by the smirking girl, but that smile was wiped off her face when they jumped out of her reach and straight into the nearest window, already gone by the time Lady Kim stuck her face outside the jagged opening.

It had all happened so fast that Seungwan had barely registered the events. She was jerked back to reality by the sobs that shook the princess’s frame, still surrounded by her protective arms. Drawing her arms back, she winced as she felt the small cuts spread all over her exposed limbs, but her attention returned to Joohyun immediately, eyes sweeping over every inch of unprotected skin for any sign of injuries.

She seemed unharmed, merely shaken by the experience, and Seungwan sighed in relief along with Lady Kim, who had approached them. “Shh, you’re alright”, Seungwan whispered in her most soothing voice, hands rubbing up and down the princess’s arms as their protector moved near the door to communicate their safety to the approaching guards.

Joohyun’s trembling hand rose to rest against Seungwan’s stinging brow and for a second, Seungwan worried about what she might do with Lady Kim still in the room, but the princess only drew her arm back to gaze at the drop of blood that had stained her finger. It took Seungwan a moment to understand that it was her own blood, the realization strangely impersonal. The princess’s eyes grew watery again as she studied her finger, then she broke into fresh tears, drawing Seungwan into a tight hug.

(…)

“You need better protection”, Seungwan insisted with a growing headache, trying to avoid pacing from side to side but finding no other way to deal with the nervous energy running through her body. Why was Joohyun making this so difficult for her?

“I am perfectly fine with the protection I already have. Lady Kim will keep me safe. After all, that is why she was chosen to serve me, isn’t it?”, Joohyun retorted in a tense voice, flippantly dismissing Lady Kim’s shocking reveal. In the aftermath of the attack, all her attention had been devoted to Seungwan’s wounds, and the discovery that her youngest lady in waiting was actually a trained assassin had apparently been silently processed in the back of her mind and easily accepted.

She leaned coolly against the wall of the abandoned corridor that led to the mage’s tower, arms crossed in a defensive posture. Seungwan had brought her here, close enough to the main hall that they wouldn’t be too isolated but far enough from people that she could have an honest argument with the princess. They certainly needed one of those, because she was being unbearably stubborn.

“Lady Kim did keep you safe, and you were still crying with fear. You need guards” She sighed, resisted the urge to move closer as her legs began to bounce, jittery with stress and uncertainty. Joohyun was only doing what she’d done in the original story, after all, but now there was nobody else to force protection on her, the king wary but not yet driven to drastic measures such as locking up his princess where nobody could read her, so Seungwan was doing her best to fulfil that duty herself. Unfortunately, she didn’t have the force of authority on her side, and she grew increasingly doubtful that she could talk Joohyun into anything.

“I was afraid for you, not me”, the princess riposted. “You were hurt” Even in the middle of the heated argument, Joohyun’s eyes glittered with unshed tears at the memory, a softened gaze falling on Seungwan and doing nothing to help her concentration.

“And perhaps I wouldn’t have been if there had been guards there to help Lady Kim”, Seungwan argued, even though she knew no amount of guards could have stopped the window from exploding all over her. Now that she thought about it, they should stop sitting on that window seat.

“This has nothing to do with your safety nor mine”, Joohyun pointed out, some of the tension leaving her, replaced with strange sadness. Her crossed arms loosened and dropped to her sides. “You refuse to be alone with me”

Seungwan bit her lip hard, but she didn’t refute the accusation. Joohyun’s attention had doubled as Seungwan recovered from her very light injuries, and her gentle care was more than she could have resisted on her own. “Those are two different questions. Regardless of… us, you still need guards. This is the third time you’ve nearly been kidnapped. Must it keep happening until the bandits finally succeed?”

“Seungwan”, Joohyun called out simply. She reached her hand forward to grab Seungwan’s arm and bring her closer, reminding Seungwan of exactly why she shouldn’t have brought the princess to an abandoned corridor where nobody could see them. “I don’t want to be surrounded by guards. I just want to be with you”

She pulled her in, wrapping her arms around Seungwan’s waist and burrowing her face in her shoulder. The sudden intimacy cut through Seungwan’s resolve like it was nothing, her heart squeezing painfully as her mind rushed to find some reason to escape the embrace and came up absolutely blank.

“Joohyun, please”, she requested desperately, unable to force her limbs to push the princess away. They couldn’t do this, she knew that very well, if for no other reason than the fact that she didn’t belong in Joohyun’s world and could never offer her the happily ever after that she deserved. “If you get kidnapped, I’ll – It’s only until the wedding”, she offered weakly. She didn’t even know what she’d do if Joohyun did get kidnapped. The fact that she must, to keep the story going, cut at her heart.

“I don’t want it”, Joohyun confessed in a wavering voice. Seungwan thought she meant the guards, but she was startled into silence when Joohyun pulled back and cradled her face in both hands. “I don’t want to marry the prince. I only want you”

Her heart hammered in her chest, her entire body seeming to jerk with each pounding heartbeat. She had to stop this, she knew she did, and still her arms hung uselessly by her sides. “You have a duty”, she mumbled, face frozen in place. Would Joohyun really force her to make the decision for them, when she knew very well that Seungwan couldn’t be more than her lady in waiting? She’d never be her equal, someone she could have.

“I don’t care about my duty”, Joohyun replied easily. She leaned in and finally Seungwan’s body sprang into action, hands landing on the princess’s shoulders to push her back.

“You can’t pretend it isn’t there, Joohyun. You’re the princess, you always will be”, she argued painfully, struggling to pull Joohyun’s hands off her when her own felt leaden and unresponsive. “Only a prince can have you. And you can only have a prince” She felt tears stinging her eyes and it wasn’t fair, it wasn’t fair at all. If the book really wanted her and Joohyun to fall for each other, couldn’t it have made her the prince? It was cruel to put them in this position, to offer them something they couldn’t have.

“Run with me”, Joohyun offered with wide eyes, hands hanging limply in Seungwan’s grasp once she finally managed to remove them from her face. “I’ll leave my title behind, we’ll be Joohyun and Seungwan, nothing more”

How naïve of the princess, to think for a second that she could outrun them all. The king, the prince, the bandits. “Joohyun”, she whispered sadly, gave in for just a moment, just enough to brush her thumb against Joohyun’s cheek. “You’ll always be my princess. Words won’t change that. Running won’t change that. You know it’s true”

Joohyun jerked away from her so suddenly that her hand rested in mid-air for a moment before she realized the princess had moved. “I won’t marry him. If you won’t come with me, I’ll go alone”, she said with cold finality, a few steps away from Seungwan.

The princess’s eyes landed on hers, waiting for an answer. An apology, another excuse, a change of heart. But Seungwan couldn’t say a word. In another life, she would have given in. In any other world, she would have put the princess’s safety above everything else, unwilling to leave her alone to face the unknown.

But she had a job to do. She had a script to follow. Joohyun had to escape alone, no matter how much it hurt Seungwan or how deeply it severed the bond between them. The prince would save her and she’d realize there was more to him than just boring stories with predictable endings, that he was reliable and charming and worthy of her. Then they’d get married and Seungwan would have a slice of elaborate meat pie at the wedding. Somehow the thought didn’t sound quite as appealing as when she’d first arrived in this world.

She let her eyes drop to the floor, kept them there as Joohyun’s steps echoed all the way down the corridor, leading her out of Seungwan’s sight.


	7. A startling discovery

Seungwan poked at her food dejectedly. She wasn’t hungry, which wasn’t unusual in this world, but this time she couldn’t even muster up the appetite to taste her meal. The entire process of eating seemed to require more energy than her body contained, so she only shoved the food from side to side, wondering how much longer she must sit before it would be appropriate to get up and leave the hall.

Recently she’d been taking her meals in her room, not very interested in meeting other people when the only person she wanted to see wouldn’t acknowledge her presence. Unfortunately, on this day there was a small celebration over the birthday of some minor Lord and everyone was required to at least make an appearance at the feast. This included the princess, of course, who sat near the top of the table devoting all her attention to the prince and not once glancing in Seungwan’s direction.

She sighed again, not noticing that someone had appeared by her side until a tap on her shoulder nearly made her fling her fork across the room. “Lady Son? May we speak?”, Seulgi requested respectfully, back to her full name. Given how drunk Seungwan had turned out to be, she could see why Seulgi wouldn’t take her up on her offer for informalities. When she nodded and patted the empty space beside her, the captain frowned uneasily. “In private”, she added.

Energy finally flooded into her limbs, helpfully provided by the panic that began to seize her. She got up jerkily and followed Seulgi outside, sparing a wicked thought to the despicable pleasure of knowing that Joohyun would see her leaving the hall with Seulgi again. What did she even hope to achieve? She was the one who had rejected the princess, not the other way around. Joohyun was probably hurting as much as her, in her own way, so it was cruel to even think of making her jealous as a way of getting her attention.

Her thoughts returned to the captain of the guards as they kept walking, past relatively empty rooms and corridors, only stopping when they were completely alone. Was she in trouble? Secret trouble? Had Seulgi found out about Joohyun’s wish to escape, or their relationship? Was she about to be executed for treason? Was liking the princess treason? Possibly not, but not telling anyone that she was going to run away might be.

“I wanted to speak to you regarding our conversation, on the day of the feast”, Seulgi began stiffly. Their conversation? Right, when they’d talked about getting Joohyun better protected and somehow it had become her job to take care of that.

“Oh, uh, I tried to get Her Highness to accept more guards, but she refused to listen”, she immediately began to explain herself. “It might be easier to go to the king or -”

“Oh, not about that, I’ve already spoken to the king”, the captain said simply. She gazed all around the round, pointedly avoiding Seungwan’s eye. She didn’t even remember them talking about anything else. “It’s about the… curse word. Fudge”, she whispered self-consciously.

Fudge? That was what was on her mind? Seungwan had absolutely no idea how to respond, so she only stood silently and waited for Seulgi to elaborate. “I can’t stop thinking about it. It’s like a word I saw someday in a dream. Like it’s so familiar even though I’m sure I’d never heard it before”, the guard mused, her brow furrowed in confusion.

“And I’ve… I’ve thought of something else”, Seulgi carried on with wide eyes. “It’s a nonsensical string of words, but it won’t leave my mind. It’s… marshmallow caramel fudge”, she pronounced slowly, puzzled at the sounds leaving her own mouth. “I don’t even know what any of it means. Does it sound familiar to you, by any chance?”

Seungwan’s jaw fell open, the entire world seeming to shift under her feet. It did sound familiar, very much so. It was the particular kind of fudge sold in the store right in front of the library entrance. They even had a big sign announcing it. So how would captain Kang Seulgi know about it? There was one possible explanation, but Seungwan couldn’t begin to wrap her mind around it. Could it be?

“Seulgi, I’m going to ask you a few questions. I need you to say the first thing that comes to mind, don’t think about it at all, alright?”, she requested tensely. Seulgi nodded, awaiting her questions. She took a deep breath. Would this even work? “What are phones for?”

“For talking”, Seulgi replied without a pause. She blinked rapidly as she processed the exchange. “What’s a phone?”

“Don’t think”, Seungwan reminded her, nervous excitement making her fingers tingle and her stomach feel strangely hollow. “What’s your favourite cartoon?”

“Powerpuff Girls. What does that even mean? Lady Son, what is happening?”, Seulgi asked with confusion, clearly surprised at the nonsensical answers she was so readily giving.

“You’re real”, Seungwan gasped, hands landing on Seulgi’s shoulders as she nearly shook her with the thrill of the realization. This changed everything, absolutely everything. “You’re real, you’re not from here, you got sucked into the book too, didn’t you?”

Seulgi’s eyes grew wide, her mouth parting as she seemed to come back to reality. “I was just reading, and it seemed so cool”, she said as if through the haze. “I wished I could be in the story, be a cool warrior who saved the princess. That’s the last thing I remember”, she concluded, staring at Seungwan in awe as the truth of the world around her fell into place.

So many questions rose from the discovery that Seungwan didn’t even know where to begin. But one persistent thought nagged at her. Seulgi had been in the story when she’d read it. Trapped in the book without even knowing it. She began to feel like this innocent-looking fairy tale wasn’t quite as benevolent as she’d imagined. Would she end up trapped as well, all memories of the real world gone?

“Seungwan?”, Seulgi asked, pulling her out of her musing. She seemed to have abandoned formalities now that she knew who she really was, who they both were. “I asked a bunch of people about the fudge thing before I came to you. Nobody knew anything about it, except one person” Seungwan felt her whole world hanging on a thread. A wish that she hadn’t even acknowledged became painfully evident. If Joohyun was real, if she wasn’t really a fantasy princess, then maybe they could actually be together. They could escape this book and –

“Yerim”, Seulgi concluded. Who was Yerim? Seulgi noticed Seungwan’s look of confusion and scratched her head in embarrassment. “Um, she’s Lady Kim. The princess’s lady in waiting who turned out to be a secret ninja or something” Oh. She deflated at the information, feeling a little silly that she’d ever thought it would be Joohyun. She was the main character, there was no story without her. How could she possibly be from Seungwan’s world?

“We need to talk to her”, Seungwan said decisively, brushing off her disappointment. “We need to share stories and figure out what exactly is going on. And then we need to get out of here” The safety of before, the confidence that she’d be back home once the story ended, was now long gone. If they wanted to leave, all three of them, they’d have to figure out how themselves.

(…)

Getting Yerim away from Joohyun was difficult. First, because the princess was evidently mad at Seungwan and acted painfully coolly. Second, because Seungwan had to reassure her again and again that this had nothing to do with her plan to escape and that she hadn’t told anyone about it. Third, because Seungwan made the mistake of mentioning Seulgi and Joohyun’s eyes immediately narrowed with displeasure.

After managing to thoroughly destroy whatever good faith she might still have had with the princess, she finally had Yerim and Seulgi in one room with her. The youngest recovered her memories easily, but they didn’t get to discuss any further before she remembered that Sooyoung had also reacted to her mention of fudge and they had to climb all the way to the top of the mage’s tower to recover yet another set of memories. Going up was even worse than going down, even if Seulgi let her lean very heavily on her arm.

Then all four of them sat in the circular room, Seulgi a bit distracted by the sights all around her to focus on the conversation and Yerim and Sooyoung taking advantage of any pause to throw insults at each other, so that the discussion moved forward very slowly. It also didn’t help that everybody was a bit put off by the strange furry monstrosity that Sooyoung cuddled protectively, its features hard to distinguish, although Seungwan was pretty sure that thing on its back was a turtle shell.

Eventually, they managed to wrangle their individual stories into a narrative that made at least a little sense. As it turned out, each of them had read a different story. Sooyoung’s included Seulgi’s and Yerim’s involvement, but not her own, while Seulgi’s story only included Yerim and Yerim’s story was all about a princess who got cold feet before her wedding and ran off, getting captured by bandits and their evil, magic-wielding villain and saved by the prince in a dangerous and thrilling fight. Everyone else agreed that this rescue by the prince was in their version as well, the big finale before the wedding.

“So, we read it in order?”, Sooyoung asked after a pause, the first to make sense of the discovery. “Yerim first, then Seulgi, then me, and now Seungwan”

“And we all entered the book to play the part we wished we had”, Yerim pointed out. “I wanted to be a cool secret bodyguard who beat up a bunch of bad guys”

“I wanted to be a brave warrior and keep the peace”, Seulgi added, to which Yerim raised a fist which she slowly bumped after some confusion.

“Fighter bros”, Yerim whispered at Seulgi.

Sooyoung cleared her throat. “And I wanted to do cool magic in my tower and be mysterious. And have red hair”, she concluded, brushing through her hair with satisfaction. The thing in her arms let out a sound halfway between a squawk and a bark, and for a second, everyone else was too petrified to answer her.

“I can’t believe you wished you’d be alone and friendless”, Yerim called out with a snort, the first to recover.

“Well, I’m not friendless, am I?”, Sooyoung riposted with a scowl. “You’re my friend”, she grumbled, cuddling her creature closer as she sunk into her chair.

“Only because I feel sad for you”, Yerim argued, not sounding very convincing.

“More like I feel sad for you. I’m the only one who knew your real identity, if you didn’t have me to talk to, you’d have to be a boring noblewoman and talk about nothing but dresses and hair. No offense, Seungwan”, Sooyoung added diplomatically, but she was hardly offended. She wasn’t an actual noblewoman, after all.

“Well, now lots of people know my secret identity. The guards and the other ladies in waiting and Seungwan”, Yerim mumbled hesitantly.

“But you still come and talk to me”, Sooyoung said simply.

“Yes”

“Then I guess we’re friends”, she concluded stiffly. Yerim nodded. They both looked flustered, avoiding eye contact. Seungwan looked at Seulgi, who seemed as out of place as her.

“So, Seungwan, what about you?”, the guard asked, trying to get the conversation moving again. “What did you wish for?”

The princess’s attention. That would be embarrassing to say out loud, though. “Just, you know, to be in a cool fantasy kingdom. Nothing specific”, she said casually. A thought ran through her mind like lightning, already out before she could fully examine it, but leaving behind a tentative question that she wasn’t sure how to approach. If the others had entered the book and gotten what they wanted, and she’d wanted to become closer to Joohyun, then what did that mean about their story?

“Anyway, I had a thought”, Sooyoung cut in, apparently focused on the issue once more. Seungwan shook the disturbing question away from her mind and devoted her full attention to Sooyoung. “You’re the only who remembered coming from the real world, right? Or, in other words, you’re the only one who doesn’t have a persona here. You have the personality and memories of real-life Seungwan, not fairy-tale Seungwan” Everyone else nodded along, obviously curious about the difference.

“I think that this is like a test run. When you get sucked into the book you go through the story and then at the end you get assigned an actual role. And then the story can start again for someone else. The next person who reads this will have you in their book”, she added with a nod towards Seungwan.

It wasn’t the most reassuring thought. Who could she possibly be? Joohyun’s lady in waiting, like the princess had wanted? Her plot point would involve the entire kingdom discovering that their princess was secretly having an affair with her closest friend. Just wonderful.

“I won’t have any role”, she said decisively, “because there won’t be another cycle. We’re going to break this spell or curse or whatever it is that’s trapping us here. I’m going to get us all out”

“Can we be friends? When we go back to the real world”, Seulgi said shyly. “I don’t have a lot of friends there. I’m not as cool as I am here”

“Of course”, Yerim replied immediately.

“I’d like that”, Seungwan added honestly. She had a feeling they’d all want to stick together after this was over.

“Well, I literally met you today”, Sooyoung pointed out. “But yeah, sure, why not?”

Seulgi grinned happily, looking between them. “Then let’s do this!”, she declared with excitement, pumping her fist in the air then slowly retracting it. “Um, what are we going to do?”, she asked sheepishly.

All heads turned to Seungwan, who thankfully had an idea. “Well, I was thinking. I keep throwing things off the rails, but the world seems to come back around eventually. Even though I’ve messed up a lot, we’re still pretty much on track. There has to be something controlling this story from the inside. Something magical. And I only know of two sources of magic. You”, she began, nodding towards Sooyoung, “and the villain”

Sooyoung mulled over the words with a look of concentration. “It makes sense”, she finally said. “Every time one of us joined the story, it had something to do with the bandits. Seulgi with that attack on the plains, Yerim with the attempted kidnapping in the princess’s room, me with the cursed flower… It could have been anything else, I could have ended up making magic fireworks for the wedding. But it was always the bandits”

“So you think we should confront the villain?”, Yerim suggested, leaning forward in her chair, probably excited at the opportunity to stab her daggers into something.

“I think _I_ need to do it”, Seungwan said slowly. “The book only sucked us in because we wanted to be in it, right? It won’t do anything against our will. Then, right now, I’m the one in charge of the story. If I meet the villain and I tell him I want us all to get out, he’ll have to do it”

“What if he doesn’t?”, Seulgi asked quietly, voicing the concerns of everyone in the room.

“Honestly, I don’t know. But do you have any other ideas? We can’t kill him, because that’s what happens in the real story. It has to be something else”, she replied with a shrug. To be honest, the future that began to draw itself in front of her wasn’t the most appealing. Between returning to the real world and staying in this fantasy world forever with no memories of her real self, she wasn’t sure which option cost her more.

“Fair enough”, Sooyoung finally agreed. The other two reluctantly nodded along. “So how are you going to do it?”

“As you know, the princess is going to run away from the palace and get captured by the bandits and taken to their leader”, she began cautiously. “She asked me to go with her, and I’m going to say yes. I need you three to help keep the guards distracted so we can escape unnoticed. And… keep the prince here as long as you can. It’ll buy me some time” She ignored the way the other three had begun to study her with furrowed brows, not in the mood for answering the questions they’d have.

“Seungwan, what’s going on between you two?”, Seulgi asked with some concern. It was all so embarrassing, wasn’t it? That she’d known from the start and still ended up in this position.

“Nothing”, she replied tensely, her hands digging into the arms of her chair. Reality was crashing down on her and she simply couldn’t avoid the truth. They never would have been happy together, and all questions of who the princess would marry and what would make her happy were pointless. It didn’t matter. She was just a character in a story. “She’s not real. None of this is” She got up abruptly, hoping that she could stop the conversation at that. “We’ll leave tonight. Can you have everything ready?”

The other three nodded in assent and she was out the door before another word could be spoken. Time to end this.


	8. A daring escape

The door to the princess’s room was flanked by guards who looked at Seungwan with suspicion as she approached it. It was understandable, given that she hadn’t visited Joohyun since their argument and suddenly she showed up twice in one day.

She waited nervously as her presence was announced, dropping her eyes to the ground as soon as Joohyun appeared at the door. At least she had agreed to see her.

“Lady Son. You again. Will you not be returning my protector?”, Joohyun asked with biting sarcasm. “If something befalls me while Lady Kim is away it’ll surely be on your head”

“I apologize, Your Highness. I left Lady Kim with Seul – Captain Kang”, she corrected quickly, cursing herself for her slip. After hours talking without formalities, it was difficult to go back to fairy-tale speech. One of the guards chuckled quietly, probably thinking that he’d stumbled upon some juicy palace gossip. She glanced up at Joohyun and what she saw was not at all encouraging. “I’m sure she will return to your side soon, Your Highness”, she added in a weak voice.

“Yes, as am I. I am never without my guards for long, these days. To what do I owe the pleasure of your visit, if not for that reason?”, Joohyun requested coldly, not sounding all that pleased.

“I’ve thought over your request, Your Highness. I have decided to accept it” She wasn’t sure what she’d expected, but it wasn’t this. Joohyun didn’t seem happy at all. She just stared her down, lips pressed tightly together as an uncomfortable silence spread between them.

“You may leave us”, she suddenly announced to the interior of her room. There were a few words of protest at the thought of leaving the princess alone, but she silenced them easily. “There are guards right outside the door and Lady Son will surely call for help if it is required. You may leave us”, she repeated in an imperious tone.

Once everyone had filed out, Seungwan entered the empty room and stood nervously by the wall, waiting for Joohyun to approach. Instead, the princess remained at a distance, carefully studying every brick in the fireplace. Seungwan wasn’t sure what her reaction could mean. Did she not want to go with her anymore?

“Well then? Did _Seulgi_ put you up to this?”, the princess finally asked, dragging out the captain’s name with an accusing lilt.

“Up to what?” Seungwan was genuinely confused, unsure whether she should explain herself as quickly as possible or take some time to reassure Joohyun that there was no reason to feel jealous of Seulgi. The princess would probably just claim that she didn’t care anyway, even if it was obviously untrue.

Joohyun sighed. “I’m not stupid, Seungwan. You just had a chat with the captain of the guards and my personal bodyguard and now you change your unwavering opinion and decide to come with me?”, she questioned bitterly. “I won’t be led into a trap. Not even by you”

Joohyun didn’t believe her. It hurt that she could ever think Seungwan would sell her out, even if she knew that it was her own fault for the way she’d acted. “Joohyun, it’s not a trap, I swear. We can leave tonight, they won’t stop us”

The princess finished inspecting the final brick and straightened up, glancing at Seungwan for a moment. Pain flitted through her eyes. “Forgive me if I don’t believe you quite so easily”, she said tightly. She made no move to approach her, so Seungwan took the initiative, advancing a few steps before the look in Joohyun’s eyes warned her that she should go no further.

“What can I do to convince you, then?”, she requested desperately. Part of her rebelled at all this effort to go with Joohyun, whispering that maybe she could just let things go on as planned, give in and stay here with her. It felt cruel to fight so hard just so she could give her up.

“Kiss me”, Joohyun replied without hesitation. “If you kiss me, I’ll know you won’t betray me. Even you wouldn’t do something so despicable”

It was the one thing she couldn’t do. She knew that if she kissed Joohyun, she’d never be able to let her go. She’d give away her life, her memories, she’d live this fairy tale again and again, she’d allow countless people to get trapped inside it just like her. All so she could be with Joohyun, so she could stay by her side and make her happy. If she kissed her, it would all be over. Even if she wanted it, it wasn’t just about her. She had a bigger responsibility. She couldn’t do it.

She saw the understanding flash in Joohyun’s eyes, quickly replaced by hurt. Her arm rose towards the door, surely to show Seungwan out, and she knew she had to do something. She rushed forward, closing the distance between them and seizing Joohyun’s hands despite her protests.

“Joohyun, listen to me. Seulgi does know, okay? And she’s going to help us. If we leave tonight, she’ll make sure the guards are distracted with something else”, she blurted out, finally resorting to the truth since it was clear that nothing else would work.

“Why?”, Joohyun asked with suspicion, but she didn’t let go of Seungwan.

“Because she’s my friend, and she wants me to be happy, and she knows I’ll only be happy with you” It was all true and it was all too painful to dwell on. She squeezed Joohyun’s hands a little tighter, hoping that her anguish at the fate that she knew awaited them could come across as sheer desperation, eagerness for the princess to trust her.

Something grew inside Joohyun until it finally spilled over the façade of cold distance, breaking it like a delicate sheet of glass. Her arms flew around Seungwan as she enveloped her in a tight embrace. “If you betray me, I’ll never forgive you, Seungwan”, she whispered in a shaky voice.

“I won’t”, she replied with all the conviction she could muster. And so what if it was a lie? Wasn’t it the least she could do for the princess? To keep her happy until the end? Once it was done, she wouldn’t remember Seungwan or any of this. Only her own fairy tale. “I would never betray you”

She stayed with Joohyun while they waited for Yerim to return, as the princess was still shaken by what had just happened and unwilling to put up a front for any of her ladies in waiting. Seungwan had told her that Yerim was in on the plan as well. It would be easier for Yerim if she didn’t have to lie to the princess.

Just before Seungwan left Joohyun in her capable hands, the young girl drew her close to whisper in her ear. “I talked about this with the others. Once we’re back in the real world, let’s meet at the store in front of the library, the one with the fudge. Be there at 5 PM on Monday, whenever that is”, she quickly let her know. “Sooyoung thinks we’ll all come back at the same time, or it’d make some weird time paradoxes, but just in case, if you don’t see anyone there on the first Monday, keep trying, okay?”

Seungwan nodded and squeezed Yerim’s shoulder comfortingly. “Don’t worry, we’ll find each other”

“Yeah”, Yerim replied with a tight smile. “Good luck”, she added uncertainly. Seungwan wanted to hug her, but she only squeezed her shoulder again and left.

(…)

They left not long after midnight. They wore men’s clothes, more practical for running and horseback riding, and heavy dark cloaks over them to conceal their identities. As Seulgi had promised, the two guards stationed to Joohyun’s bedroom were gone, and inside the room was only Yerim, who would hopefully come up with a good excuse for why the princess had disappeared under her watch. Not that it would matter for much longer, if Seungwan’s plan was successful.

They snuck down to the kitchen through countless secret passages, not meeting a single soul on the way. Finally, they made their way out of the palace, got on their horses and galloped away.

They raced that entire night and the next day, without pause. On the second night, once they were a safe distance from the palace, they stopped to let the horses rest and to sleep for at least a few hours. Seungwan sat in front of their improvised campfire, well aware that it could signal their presence to anyone in the area but not very worried when the plan was to get captured in the first place.

“Will you kiss me now?”, Joohyun mumbled against her shoulder, where her head rested lazily. Seungwan could tell that she had already drifted halfway to sleep, but she seemed to be resisting it stubbornly. “We’re far from the palace”

“You are still my princess, for as long as we remain in your kingdom”, Seungwan replied lightly, bringing her hand up to brush through Joohyun’s hair and help lull her to sleep. “But once we have left its borders, I promise that you’ll have as many kisses as you wish”, she lied gently. Joohyun hummed in approval, snuggling closer into Seungwan.

They sat in silence, basking in the warmth of the fire and the comfort of each other’s embrace. “Joohyun?”, Seungwan asked experimentally, checking whether the princess had already fallen asleep. She sighed lightly against Seungwan to indicate that she was listening. “Do you know what fudge is?”

Her heart rammed into her ribcage as she waited for Joohyun to answer, desperately hoping that she wouldn’t simply fall asleep. “Isn’t that what you mutter when something goes wrong?”, the princess finally asked.

“Right, it is”, she admitted with a forced laugh, the pounding of her heart so strong that it made her sick. “And… marshmallow caramel fudge?”, she tried again.

Joohyun giggled tiredly against her. “That must be for when things are truly catastrophic”, she replied playfully. Seungwan was glad the princess couldn’t see her face, because she wasn’t sure she could have concealed the grimace that those words elicited. She’d already known, in a way. There would be no story without the princess, right? She had to have been there from the start. But to have it confirmed with such finality was so much more painful than she’d expected.

Joohyun truly wasn’t hers. She wasn’t anyone’s. She wasn’t even real. So why couldn’t she stop loving her?

The princess’s gentle hands began to push her down, until they were lying on the ground side by side. She cuddled against Seungwan’s side, sighing happily as Seungwan wrapped her arms around her and pulled her close. Finally, she fell asleep, blissfully unaware that they would be captured by bandits before the sun rose again.

Despite her heartache, Seungwan must have followed her to sleep some time later, because it was only when harsh voices sounded in her ear that she noticed they’d been surrounded. Joohyun awoke at around the same time, barely stifling a scream at the sight of the armed men approaching from all sides. She clung to Seungwan, who felt strangely calm, tired to the bone of pretending she didn’t know what would happen next.

They were dragged to a small wooden cage by cackling bandits who poked at them with their sheathed swords, thrown inside unceremoniously and locked away. In a few seconds, the cage was being carried off, rattling as it traversed the uneven ground.

Joohyun wouldn’t stop crying, no matter how much Seungwan tried to reassure her that everything would be alright. “You’re a princess, they won’t hurt you”, she repeated gently, wiping away all her tears. “Your father will pay them and they’ll return you safely. Everything will be alright, you’ll see”

“And you? You’re no princess”, Joohyun sobbed out, clinging to Seungwan so tightly that the latter could barely breathe. “If they hurt you, if they kill you…” She paused, raised a hand to Seungwan’s cheek, trying to reassure herself that she wasn’t going anywhere. “I’ll be as good as dead”, she whispered, then burst into fresh tears.

“You were right, we should never have run”, she wailed miserably, the hand still on Seungwan’s back clenching the fabric in a small fist. “Now everything has gone wrong. Even if we live, we’ll only end up back in the palace. I’ll only end up married to the prince. We’ll never be together”, she concluded between sobs and pained gasps.

“Joohyun, listen to me”, Seungwan attempted, grabbing both of her hands and bringing them to her front. She began massaging her knuckles as she spoke. “I was wrong. I was absolutely wrong. Even if the odds are against us, impossibly so, we still have to try. For love, we have to try. I have no regrets” She brought the hands to her lips and kissed them, one and then the other. “I love you”, she concluded with a steady voice. It was all she could give Joohyun. She hoped it would help, at least a little.

“I know”, Joohyun said, forcing a laugh in between her shaky breathing. “You told me before, remember?”, she asked in an attempt at playfulness that clashed painfully with the pleading in her voice. Seungwan nodded, smiled in return. She did remember, back when she’d been drunk and Joohyun had tucked her into bed with impossible tenderness. She was glad Joohyun had understood, that she’d taken it for its full meaning.

The princess took a deep breath, trying to subdue her stuttering sobs, and looked her in eye. She kept her gaze locked on hers in spite of all the bumps in the rocky ground that tossed their bodies from side to side in their cramped cage. “If anything happens… Can’t you kiss me, just once? So that, no matter what, we’ll always have that kiss?”

She knew, with absolute certainty, that if she kissed Joohyun at this moment, she would break down entirely. She would confess to everything. Joohyun would probably think she was insane, but it wouldn’t even matter because she’d soon forget. They both would, fated to live out their love story like automatons. And she knew she couldn’t do that. She couldn’t give up reality for something fake, manufactured just for her.

She blinked away the tears that finally came to her eyes. Her grip on Joohyun’s hands must be painful by now, but she couldn’t help it. “I can’t have you now, only to lose you later. I just can’t” Joohyun nodded solemnly. She knew what that meant, or at least she thought she did. She couldn’t imagine the truth. “But when this is all over, when we’re safe, when you’re no longer my princess”, she slowly enumerated, knowing that each condition was more improbable than the last. She paused at that, unable to finish her promise, and slowly let their hands drop to her lap. Joohyun didn’t ask anything else.

The rest of the uncomfortable ride was spent in silence. The sun was rising over the horizon, the sky still casting off the darkness of night, when they finally arrived at the bandits’ hideout. A foul-mouthed man pulled them out of the cage and into the hideout, cursing as he dragged them along a labyrinthic series of corridors that ended in a dimly-lit room where a relatively better-dressed bandit sat on a high chair.

“Ah, princess Joohyun, how nice of you to join us”, the man in the high chair quipped. “All this trouble trying to find you and then you come stumbling to our doorstep. I must have pleased the gods to earn myself such luck” The bandits laughed uproariously and Joohyun winced at the unpleasant sound. Seungwan rested a protective hand on her arm, trying to soothe her.

“And who might this one be?”, he asked, turning to Seungwan.

“Son Seungwan”, she answered simply. There was no room in her mind for fear, not when anger pumped through her veins like fire.

“Not a very pretty name, is it? I suppose it suits you” He laughed again, joined by all his followers. Seungwan’s hands dropped to her sides and clenched into fists. She was tired of the games.

“Will you waste the princess’s time with middlemen?”, she shouted to the room, not addressing anyone in particular. The bandit chief seemed surprised by her words, nearly as surprised as Joohyun, who stared at her like she’d grown a second head. She couldn’t bring herself to care when she knew that soon enough it’d all be over, one way or another.

“I am no middleman. These men are my own and follow only me”, he said menacingly, but Seungwan wasn’t bothered in the least. Joohyun followed the exchange with confusion, baffled by Seungwan’s sudden bravado.

“I don’t question that you are the leader of the bandits. But you, like all your men, are only following orders. I seek the man in charge, not his underlings”, she requested calmly, no longer needing to raise her voice when the room had fallen into deathly silence. Joohyun tugged on her sleeve, but she ignored it. She needed the mastermind behind all this, not the idiot blustering in front of her. She needed to get this over with, once and for all.

The bandit leader slowly unsheathed his sword. “I only need the princess alive”, he stated dangerously. “You are of no use to me, girl. So if I were you, I would mind my tongue”

“Enough”, a voice cut through his threats. It was clear it didn’t belong to any of the bandits surrounding them. It was too calm and collected, too rich with command, too laced with something subtle and mysterious. It was him. The one she wanted. “Let the girl come to me”

The man in the high chair didn’t even hesitate. He put his sword back in place and settled more comfortably in his chair, reaching with his right hand to point out a curiously camouflaged door. Only a slight frown showed how displeased he was at having to submit to the owner of the mysterious voice “You heard the man”

Seungwan gripped Joohyun’s hand, but she was stopped before she could start moving. “Oh, no, my dear. He wants you. The princess stays with us. Well, don’t worry, we’re all good company. And we do need her alive”, the man reminded her, letting out a small chuckle.

Joohyun’s eyes were large and pleading, but she had no choice. She had to go. She let go of the princess, telling herself again and again that she wasn’t real, the only thing that could convince her to leave Joohyun alone with these men.

“I’ll be right back. I’ll take care of everything, I promise. Everything is going to be alright” She hated herself for lying, but there was nothing else she could do. The only thing that kept her going was the thought that there was one thing out there that she hated more than herself, and it awaited her right through that door.

In a few steps, she was at the door. She stepped out of the dim space into an unexpectedly cosy little room, with a lit fireplace in a corner and comfortable armchairs disposed around it. In one of them sat an elegantly dressed middle-aged man who turned to her casually as she entered, pointing towards the seat next to his in a silent invitation. She approached him slowly, but didn’t sit.

After a tense moment of silence, he sighed, resigned to his fate, and got up as well. “Well then, Seungwan”, he said pleasantly. “I suppose it’s time for me to make my case”


	9. An end and a beginning

“I want to go back to the real world”, Seungwan spat out angrily before the man in front of her could begin some useless speech. “I don’t need to hear anything from you”

“Yes, I know all about your plan”, he said with a wave of his hand, easily dismissing this admission of omniscience. “And I know you have only good intentions, but there’s a lot you’re not considering” So she was right. He was in charge and he knew everything that was going on in the story. And his words certainly seemed to hint that she had the ultimate power of decision, or she doubted he’d try to convince her of anything. He’d just snap his fingers and she’d be one of his puppets.

“And what am I not considering? That you kidnap people? That you wipe their memories? That you’re going to do the same to me and then move on to your next victim?”, she enumerated with increasing venom. The man sighed, a sad frown appearing on his face.

“No, Seungwan. That I make people happy”, he said gently, curving his lips into a benevolent smile. “That’s what I’m here for. It’s my… Well, It’s my job, but more than that. It’s the very reason for my existence”

She scoffed, not believing a single word. He tried to step closer, but she moved backwards, keeping the same distance between them, and he sighed as he stopped walking. “You know it’s the truth. You weren’t happy in your old life. In fact, you were so miserable that you asked me, begged me, to come here. And I let you join my little fairy tale, because all I want is to make you happy”, he concluded softly, a look of empathetic suffering in his eyes, like he couldn’t stand that Seungwan would be unhappy for even a moment when he could prevent it.

She took another step back, even though he hadn’t moved from his place. His words, spoken so gently, were harsh in her ears, and she needed more distance from them, from him. It scared her how he sounded so sure of himself, how he was offering her exactly what she’d wanted.

“Now, now, I know what you’re thinking. ‘Well now I’m here, and I’m not happy either’”, he said with a good-natured chuckle. Seungwan was startled as she realized that the thought hadn’t even crossed her mind. That she was already so prepared to accept what he had to offer. “That’s only because you’re fighting it. Every tear that you’ve shed since coming to this world was because you refused to accept the happiness that I gave you”

The happiness that he’d given her. The beautiful princess who’d fallen for her at his will. “You gave me lies”, she said simply, swallowing around the knot in her throat as pain turned into rebellion. “You want me to forget myself and become some fake character, all so I can receive the love of somebody who doesn’t even exist. A love that you manufactured to make me happy” It felt strange to raise her voice against such a calm, well-mannered individual, but she couldn’t help herself. She needed to be angry because she was afraid of what she’d feel otherwise.

He smiled conspiratorially and leaned forwards, though he didn’t try to step closer like before, mindful of the distance that Seungwan had imposed. “Do you want to know a secret?”, he asked with childish mischief, a lopsided grin drawing itself on his face. “I didn’t make her love you. I only did what you asked. Make you a noblewoman, have you meet the princess. Check and check”, he added playfully. “Everything else was all you”

The revelation stunned her and she could only stand in silence for a moment, reeling as he studied her patiently. Joohyun had fallen for her. The beautiful and wonderful fairy tale princess had fallen for Seungwan. Just because of who she was. No strings pulling at her limbs, no duty dragging her in the right direction. Just Seungwan.

“You’re lying”, she argued shakily, but he shook his head without hesitation.

“I don’t lie. I don’t need to. The truth is wonderful enough. I wrote the most perfect princess I could imagine and she fell in love with you”, he said with a chuckle. “I didn’t change anything about the world or her circumstances, I simply stretched things around to fit you in here with the rest of us and then…” He let his words hang in the air, only raising his arms to shrug like the rest was history.

“Now, why don’t you stop fighting what’s right in front of you and let yourself be happy? Go back in there, get the girl, and then we can talk about who you’d like to be in the story”, he offered with his most convincing smile. “You can be the prince. Better yet, be a princess and marry her anyway, anything is allowed here. Or be who are now and just run off with her to the next kingdom over, that’s fine by me. I’ll give her a sister and she can marry the prince. Or I can get rid of the prince altogether, it’s your call”

His words, spoken pleasantly but with contagious enthusiasm, began to dig into her heart and tug at it with irresistible force, but the reminder of how easily her life could change, how he would shuffle them all into place and start things over, was like a bucket of cold water over her head.

“It won’t be real”, she managed to say with some effort. He paused, his smile growing smaller as he looked away with impatience.

“Real, real, real. You have got to let go of this obsession with what’s real, Seungwan”, he declared, his voice slow and even through evident effort. “Real is just a useless category. Who’s to say that real is best? What makes the real world so much better than this one? The real world won’t have _her_ ”, he finished with sudden venom, making it very clear who he meant.

Seungwan was startled by the sharpness that arose in the previously playful man. She took another step back, wary of his new attitude. What did he really want? And what was he hiding from her?

“Here, you’re happy. There, you’re miserable. Here, you have Joohyun. There, you’re alone. And the best part of all is that, if you stay, you won’t have any of these doubts biting away at your happiness”, he said with growing animation. “As soon as you’ve forgotten about this, it’ll just be you and her. Together. Happy. No worries in that little head of yours. Wouldn’t that be nice?”, he asked, his tone insistent but his words sounding painfully appealing.

“Ignorance is bliss, then?”, she asked. She wanted to sound sarcastic, but the question came out uncertain.

“Well, isn’t it?”, he returned easily, voice gentle again as he reached out his arm. “Let me make you happy, Seungwan. Everyone is happy here”

“Everyone?”, she asked dubiously. He finally took another step forward, and this time she didn’t back away.

“Everyone”, he confirmed with an encouraging smile. “Every peasant, every maid, every guard. Heck, even the bandits are happy. And they never hurt anyone, either. The benefits of a magical world. Now, come on” He stepped towards her again, cautiously, and smiled when she remained still. “Take my hand. Say yes. I’ll give you your happy ending”

“I think”, she said slowly. “That you lied to me” The man froze, stunned by her words, the smile sliding off his face as his features shifted in surprise. “Either that, or you’re just a bad storyteller”

“What?”, he asked with sudden rage, face reddening and contorting in anger before he composed himself. “Whatever do you mean?”, he carried on, a bit calmer, though the corner of his lips still twitched with something barely suppressed.

“You said that you didn’t make Joohyun fall for me. You didn’t change her personality at all for this cycle of the story”, she began. The man nodded in agreement, urging her to continue. “And you said that everyone here is happy”, she concluded simply. He gazed at her in confusion, and she couldn’t help but smile at the sight. For once, she had the upper hand.

“I saw Joohyun with the prince. She didn’t just pick me over him, she genuinely didn’t care about him at all. She thought he was boring. I mean, he is the most handsome man I’ve ever seen and she barely spared him a second glance” The man studied her blankly. “She’s gay, okay? You’ve made a gay princess. If she hadn’t fallen for me, she still wouldn’t have loved him. She would have married him and joined him in his kingdom and she wouldn’t have been happy. She might not have realized it, but it’s still true. In the story I read, she wasn’t happy”

“So, either you lied about her being happy or you lied about us falling in love without your meddling”, she stated smugly, happy that she’d caught him in his trickery. She wondered how he’d explain himself, one side of her pleased that she wouldn’t fall for his lies and the other treacherously hopeful that he’d still manage to convince her. That there would still be a reason to stay.

There was a moment of silence where the man only stared at her and Seungwan stared back, feeling a bit like she was in a contest of wills. Finally, he turned away with a grumbled “Okay” that almost startled her with its unexpected bite.

“So, here’s the thing. If you don’t accept my generous proposal and join me and my wonderful cast in this magical little place I’ve drawn up for us, then it’s the end. Capital letters and everything, do you understand? The End”, he spelled out, stretching out his hands as if to frame the words. He changed in an instant, features carved by disdain as his very body seemed to shift, growing sharper, less human, closer to whatever he really was.

“You and your little friends go off back to the real world and everybody else is gone. No more magical kingdom, no more prince and princess. More importantly, no more me” He paused, probably just for dramatic flair, and took a deep breath. Seungwan could barely follow his words, though. Her mind seemed to have frozen at the thought of Joohyun being gone. She didn’t know whether the characters in the man’s story even existed while nobody real was inside it, but still, the idea that Joohyun would vanish from existence entirely was horrifying.

“As you can imagine, I am very attached to my own existence. I would like to keep existing, if that is at all possible”, the man carried on, his words completely meaningless to Seungwan. Who cared if he was gone? Who cared if anything was gone? How could she care about anything other than Joohyun? “So yes, I might have… taken some liberties with the truth”, he muttered reluctantly.

“You lied”, Seungwan specified in a hollow voice, barely able to care anymore.

“Fine, fine, I lied. Congratulations, detective Son, you caught me”, he rambled sarcastically, throwing his hands in the air in fake surrender. “But I can tell you two things that are definitely true. I’ll swear it on my honour as a storyteller” He lifted his left hand and let the right one rest on his chest, over where his heart would be if he had one. Seungwan genuinely wasn’t sure, since he certainly wasn’t human.

“One, I did not make Joohyun fall in love with you”, he began, smirking at the way his words still managed to affect Seungwan. “Two, every _real_ person in this story is happy”, he added, emphasising the world ‘real’ with heavy sarcasm.

“But Joohyun isn’t real”, she immediately pointed out. Would he trick her? Could she believe anything he said at this point? What if Joohyun was with her, making her happy beyond her wildest dreams, but not actually sharing any of that joy? Were these really her options? Living a lie in a made-up world or erasing every trace of the person she loved more than anything?

“Well, yes, but she said it herself. If you’re with her, she’ll be happy”, he replied, quoting what Joohyun had told her weeks ago, when she’d recovered from the soul-stealing curse. The suspicion, hope and dread that mingled inside her bubbled into the same simple anger she’d felt as she’d entered his room. With a few swift steps, she walked up to him and slapped him soundly.

He didn’t care. That was the only thing she needed to know. She wasn’t sure what he’d lied about, or how Joohyun truly felt, or anything about the rules of this world, but she did know that he didn’t care about her happiness one bit. She couldn’t trust him to make her happy. No matter how dire the consequences, staying here was a mistake. Letting him get his way was a mistake.

“I’m going back to the real world” There was nothing she could do here, no way to save the princess. Joohyun had been doomed from the moment she’d been created, a victim of this evil being’s actions. The storyteller must have known she wouldn’t change her mind, because he dropped any attempt at a pleasant smile and sneered at her with contempt.

“Go ahead. Make yourself miserable. Walk away from the love of your life”, he spat out viciously.

“She’s not the love of my life”, she argued, though she barely believed her own words. “She’s not even –“

“Real, yes, we know! She’s not even real. She’s fake, false, a figment, a phony”, he rambled on, gesticulating left and right with barely suppressed rage. “So say the word and go on your way. I’m tired of listening to you and your obsession with reality”, he huffed out, dropping down on the nearest chair with a hand over his forehead.

Seungwan turned to the door, steeled herself for that last painful goodbye. The last time she’d ever see Joohyun. If she could engrave every detail in her mind, she would at least have something to hang on to. Something to remember.

“Oh, terribly sorry to disappoint, but that’s not going to happen. Yes, I see you gazing longingly at the door, but you must make your choice now. Ask to leave and you’ll leave, you and all your friends from the _real world_. Walk out that door and you’re staying”, the man said pointedly, managing to coat his words in acid despite the tired lilt in his voice.

She whipped her head around at the news. “What? Why can’t I see her?”

“Because I don’t want to die and I will try anything to make you stay”, he replied casually. “Did it work?”

She blinked back angry tears at the unfairness of it all. At his pointless, hurtful cruelty, grasping at the last chance to hurt her before he’d be gone forever. “Get me out of here”, she said through gritted teeth. “Do it, now”

She woke up in her bed. It was morning, and the book still sat on her bedside table. When she opened it, she found that every single page was blank. It was all gone. Joohyun was gone.

(…)

The next Monday, they were all there. It was strange seeing them again, dressed in their school uniforms, still the same people but subtly different. The real Seulgi wasn’t as muscular, her shoulders not as broad. She was a shy, skinny girl who enveloped them in a tight hug as soon as she saw them, then released them nervously, like she wasn’t sure what was allowed in this new world.

The real Sooyoung looked about the same, maybe a bit younger, with the obvious exception that her hair was no longer bright red, but rather the typical shiny black. She wasn’t as eager to spit out biting remarks, talking to the older girls almost deferentially and appearing uncertain in her connection with anyone but Yerim.

Meanwhile, the youngest was the closest to her fairy-tale persona. She was just as short, just as young, just as flippant and just as shameless. She probably wasn’t as skilled with daggers, but Seungwan would rather not find out. It made sense, in a way. Yerim was a kid and she’d wanted to enter a child’s book so she could be free to run around and kick bad guys in the face. She didn’t need to change for that, only to be placed in a world where it was a possibility for her.

For the older girls, it was a little more complicated. Seulgi wanted to fight bad guys as well, but she was motivated by her experience with school bullies, who’d never targeted her directly but still made her feel helpless as she watched them hurt other kids. She’d wanted to feel like she could do something about it. Sooyoung loved science, but she’d never felt like it was something she could study seriously, discouraged at school and at home from following a boys’ field of study. She’d wished for the next best thing and become a mage, hidden from sight and from judgement, and finally comfortable expressing herself.

It made Seungwan wonder how different she’d be in her own iteration of the story. What could have changed about her, physically or mentally? She might be a little taller, that would be nice. She began to feel like she would never grow beyond her current vertically-challenged state and it wasn’t the most appealing prospect. Even Yerim would be taller than her in a few years.

In that first meeting, they shared all they could remember about their time in the book and their return to real life. Contrary to what they’d expected, the three girls had come back to find that they’d never been missing. Their bodies had been there, going about their lives on auto-pilot, ready to welcome their consciousness back as it escaped from the book.

As soon as they’d returned to their bodies and their normal lives, the details of the fairy tale began to fade from their memory, like dreams that were so clear in the instant after waking up and somehow became impossible to recall just a few minutes later.

Their interactions with each other were the clearest, with everything else slowly but surely disappearing as the days went by. The other three were fine with that, relieved that their fantasy alter-egos wouldn’t be filling their heads with false memories and impossible beliefs. Sooyoung was particularly amused by the effect, looking back on all the spells that had seemed so logical in the book but suddenly appeared completely nonsensical in the real world.

Seungwan hated it. She bought a notebook and filled page after page with everything she could recall about Joohyun. She described her eyes, every one of her smiles, all the constellations she’d painstakingly pointed out in the night sky over the palace, the words she’d spoken to Seungwan, how she’d asked her to kiss her. She kept Joohyun’s image fresh in her mind with an effort that she had never devoted to anything before.

They met every week, started talking about more than just their time in the book and everything that had led them to enter it in the first place. They talked about their families, their times at school, their hopes and worries for the future. They became friends.

Seulgi started learning Taekwondo. She was the oldest white belt in the class, but she didn’t let it discourage her, simply befriending all the children around her and happily carrying the youngest on her shoulders after practice. Sooyoung had a serious conversation with her parents and decided to study engineering in the future. In the end, they supported her, and even apologized for ever making her feel like it was something she couldn’t do.

Yerim started carrying a pair of sticks around to replace the daggers she didn’t have anymore. She’d stab them into the air, randomly jumping into walls or crouching down dramatically. She almost poked one of Seungwan’s eyes out with the things.

It was nice spending time with her friends. It made her feel a little better, even if the pain of heartbreak took frustratingly long to fade. She knew that when it eventually got a little easier to manage, they’d still be there. Life would still be there.

She watched Sooyoung wave her wallet in the air, offering to buy Yerim an ice cream if she put the sticks in the trash and stopped trying to stab her. Yerim paused her attack, seriously considering the deal, then dropped the sticks and reached for Sooyoung’s hand, pulling her towards the nearest ice cream place.

Seungwan felt fingers slide into hers and she knew it could only be Seulgi. “It’s okay to be sad, Seungwan”, the girl said lightly. She stood next to her, eyes on the younger pair as they nearly ran down the street. “I know you cared about her”

She smiled bitterly, unsure of how true those words could be. “She wasn’t even real”, she mumbled in a pained voice. The storyteller had hated that Seungwan kept reminding him of it and she had to admit that she didn’t particularly enjoy the fact either.

“Maybe not”, Seulgi admitted with a small shrug. “But your feelings were. They still are”, she pointed out gently, her words reaching something inside Seungwan that she hadn’t even known about. Something curled up in pain, something that growled as she poked at it. Something she couldn’t just ignore until it went away. “You need time before you can feel better. You need to give yourself that time. Nothing changes overnight”

She felt tears sting at the corners of her eyes, tears that she hadn’t let out since she’d returned from her adventure, from the story that seemed more dreamlike by the day. She clenched her jaw, forcing them back. She knew Seulgi was right, but she wasn’t ready. Not yet. She wasn’t ready to grieve. Maybe she could wait until it wouldn’t feel so painful, so impossibly overwhelming to face head-on.

Seulgi squeezed her hand. “I’ve been told I’m a great shoulder to cry on, if you ever feel like you might need one of those”, she joked. “Just give me a call and I’ll be there. And I’ll bring my shoulders”, she added with a smile. Seungwan laughed, squeezed her hand back.

“I will. Now let’s go test Sooyoung’s generosity”, she said playfully, trying to lighten the mood. “You do the puppy eyes and I’ll threaten to tickle her. One of them should get us free ice cream”

The sun was low on the horizon as she hurried home. She walked down busy commercial streets, hoping she’d make it back before it got too cold. With hands firmly shoved into the pockets of her jacket, she stepped into a wide plaza surrounded by stores and coffee shops. The lights had already been turned on despite the weak clarity that still clung to the sky and Seungwan followed the row of lampposts to the opposite end of the open space.

“Seungwan?”, a voice cut through the bustle of voices and cars. She turned, confused by a familiarity she couldn’t place, and saw a figure standing across the street. Her hair wasn’t quite as long, only hanging a bit below her shoulders. Her face wasn’t as bright and unmarked by worry, although its beauty was still indescribable. Far beyond anything Seungwan had been able to write down in her notebook.

“Joohyun!”, she called out, her throat dry and raspy. It was her. She was here. She was real.


	10. A second chance

She nearly jumped into oncoming traffic in her rush to get to Joohyun, sure that she’d disappear at any moment, but the look of panic on the face across the street convinced her to wait the few seconds it would take for the light to turn green for pedestrians.

All around her, people continued to move in their rush to get home. It seemed strange that nobody had noticed her and Joohyun, that nobody had paused to witness the miracle taking place in front of their eyes. They just kept walking, only registering her presence in order to avoid bumping into her.

And then the light was green and she didn’t care about a single person aside from Joohyun, who was finally close enough to touch, close enough to capture in a hug so tight she couldn’t even breathe. “You’re real”, she whispered in her ear, her hands shaking as she clung to her. “You’re here”

“Only because of you”, Joohyun answered, pulling back to face her. She was different from princess Joohyun. She seemed more restrained, less given to the princess’s effusive bursts of emotion. She gazed at Seungwan with bright eyes and held her hands in a painfully tight grip, but still her lips were curved in a soft smile and her voice sounded steady. Subdued.

“You saved me. I don’t know what you did, but you went in that tiny room and the next thing I knew, I was back home. Actual home, not the palace”, Joohyun explained happily. “I’ve been trying to find you ever since, but I wasn’t sure if you even knew what you’d done. If you knew I was here”

Seungwan listened in a daze, barely registering her words. The same thought still occupied her mind, not allowing much else to cut through it. “You’re real”, she repeated in awe. “He lied. He lied about everything”, she breathed out in a sudden rage.

Joohyun’s brow furrowed in confusion. “Who lied?”

“The storyteller! The… thing in charge of the story! He told me you weren’t real”, she exclaimed, nearly yelling. She knew he was gone, but she suddenly wished there was some way to hurt him, to bring him back just to make him pay for his cruel lie.

“And you just believed him?”, Joohyun asked playfully. Her tone was still light, like she didn’t understand the meaning of what Seungwan had done. It made sense, because she couldn’t know. She hadn’t been there with her. She hadn’t heard the way the man had dangled Joohyun’s inexistence over Seungwan’s head, told her that she’d destroy every trace of Joohyun on her way out.

“He didn’t – He wouldn’t let me say goodbye – I thought I’d never see you again” The words stumbled out of her in a rush, just as she felt a stream of tears pour down her face. Joohyun tried to brush them away, but Seungwan pulled her closer to hide against her shoulder. She knew how embarrassing she must look, sobbing into Joohyun like a child, but she couldn’t help it. It all came crashing down on her and it seemed that the breakdown she’d been fighting off for so long had finally arrived.

A hesitant hand dropped on her back, beginning to rub it in soothing circles. “It’s okay, I’m here”, Joohyun whispered sweetly. “I’m here now, I’m not going anywhere”

They stood holding each other until the sky was entirely dark and the world around them was no longer packed with people making their way home. Finally, Seungwan pulled back, hands slightly numb from the cold and from hanging on so tightly to the back of Joohyun’s coat.

“I’m sorry I messed up your shirt”, she mumbled in a voice still thick from crying, sniffling a little as she spoke. Joohyun laughed the concern away and turned to the side to rummage in her bag.

“Don’t worry, I owe you more than a shirt after what you’ve done for me”, she said awkwardly. She turned back with a pack of tissues, which she handed to Seungwan.

“Do you owe me more than a shirt and a pack of tissues?”, Seungwan asked in a poor attempt at humour. She suddenly felt nervous, worried that Joohyun would simply go away. What if she didn’t want to talk to her anymore? What if she didn’t feel the way she had in the book and Seungwan’s crying and sobbing had just made her uncomfortable?

“Maybe a coffee as well? If that’s alright with you”, Joohyun offered a bit uncertainly. “It’s just, I feel like you know a lot more than me about what happened. I was hoping we could talk”

The excitement that had bubbled up in Seungwan’s chest died down a bit as Joohyun explained. Obviously she just wanted to know about the book and whatever Seungwan had done to get them out of it. It wasn’t her fault if it had sounded, just for a second, like it might have been a date. Seungwan should focus on the positive side: at least she wanted to talk. Maybe they could keep in touch.

“It doesn’t – if you have to go home, we can… do it some other time, whenever it’s best for you”, Joohyun added after a pause, and Seungwan finally noticed that she hadn’t actually answered her.

“No, we can do it now, I don’t have any plans. Now is fine”, she quickly confirmed. Thankfully, Joohyun didn’t dwell on her awkward response and simply smiled happily. She turned to go, offering Seungwan her arm as she used to do whenever they walked together. They both paused, looking at it hesitantly before Joohyun cleared her throat and let it drop, shoving her hands in the pockets of her coat.

“Right, I know a place. This way”, she said, nodding towards a side street before walking off slowly.

They walked in silence for a few minutes, until Seungwan felt ready to say anything just to have them talking again. “I’m sorry I cried on you for such a long time. It must have been weird for you”, she tried, not very happy with what she’d come up with.

Joohyun, who was a few steps ahead of her, slowed down to walk by her side before answering. “It wasn’t weird at all. You did the same for me, remember? When the bandits got us, I cried on you the whole way to their base”, she pointed out with a small shrug.

“You remember that?”, Seungwan asked with some surprise. She’d assumed most things would have faded away by now. None of her friends could remember anything other than a few scattered details, everything else already scrubbed from their minds.

“It’s a little fuzzy, but I do”, Joohyun admitted shyly, kicking a stray rock before carrying on. “I tried my best not to forget anything. I was afraid that if I let things slip, I might walk by you one day and not recognize you anymore. I shouldn’t have worried, though. As soon as I saw you, I knew it was you”

She’d grown a little red as she spoke and now she let her mouth snap shut, cast her eyes forward and began to speed up once more. Seungwan reached out to keep her close, fingers circling her wrist. Neither of them said anything as she let her fingers slide down, to join Joohyun’s hand inside her pocket. They walked the rest of the way in silence, but it began to feel a bit less suffocating and a bit more comfortable.

(…)

The coffee shop where Joohyun had brought her was nearly empty at this late hour, when most people were already having dinner. They sat in a corner with their drinks, Seungwan taking the last bites of a sandwich that Joohyun had bought her after her stomach had rumbled a few too many times.

“So, based on what the storyteller told me, I guess the plan was just to suck people in, convince them that staying in the story was a good idea and then get them to agree on their own. Then they’d forget everything and be part of the fairy tale and the book would pop up in the library to find its next victim”, she summed up slowly. “And I was the only one who made enough of a mess on her first run through the story to expose the whole thing”, she added with a chuckle.

Joohyun sipped on her drink, tea rather than coffee, and mulled over Seungwan’s words. “It sounds like a mess was exactly what was needed”, she mused with a small smile. “But what I don’t understand is why you believed I wasn’t real, just because he said it. You knew he was a liar and, well, he had very good reasons to lie about that”, she pointed out. She didn’t seem angry, only curious at the situation.

“Actually, I already kind of suspected you weren’t real because you didn’t… remember fudge”, she finished with decreasing volume, a little embarrassed at how weak the explanation sounded when she said it out loud.

“Fudge? That was your test?”, Joohyun asked, amusement mixed with disbelief. “Was that supposed to cause such a strong reaction that it even broke through the fog of fake memories? I’m sorry to disappoint, but I’m not a big fan of the stuff”, she concluded with a crooked smile.

“No, it’s – There’s a fudge place in front of the library where we all found the book. It sells marshmallow caramel fudge, it’s got a big sign and everything. Everyone else remembered”, she mumbled sullenly, a bit disconcerted by Joohyun’s reaction.

“Everyone else?”, her companion asked with surprise.

“Oh! I forgot to tell you! We’re not the only people who got trapped in the book. There were other girls and they helped me with my plan, we’re friends now and we hang out all the time. You can come with me next time and meet them. I mean, if you want. It’s not…”, she trailed off, staring into her warm coffee to avoid Joohyun’s eyes.

“That sounds nice”, she said simply. Seungwan looked up cautiously and found her smiling at her, so she smiled back. “So, who were they? Do I know them?”

“Oh, well there’s Sooyoung. She’s the king’s mage, so I guess you two never met, but I think you’ll like her, she’s nice. And there’s Yerim too”, she remembered with excitement.

“My Yerim?”, Joohyun cut in with wide eyes.

“Yes! I’m sure she’ll be happy to see you and, uh, she’s a little different from book-Yerim, you know, she’s not a trained assassin or anything like that, she’s just a kid, but she’s really funny and we got her to stop stabbing people with sticks, so it’s the perfect time to meet her” She took a deep breath after her long, rambling sentence, happy at the way Joohyun’s eyes twinkled with joy. For a moment, she forgot what she was saying and only stared into those eyes.

“So, it’s just the three of you?”, Joohyun asked, bringing her cup up to her lips. Seungwan finally caught herself and looked away sheepishly.

“No, there’s also Seulgi. The, uh, the captain of the guards, do you remember her?”

Joohyun smiled tightly, suddenly looking a little awkward. “Yes, I remember Seulgi” She didn’t elaborate and neither did Seungwan, so that they both sat in silence for a few moments, only taking sips of their drinks.

“So, it’s weird that you didn’t remember the fudge”, Seungwan said in an effort to change the subject. Joohyun looked a little relieved and quickly seized the topic.

“Actually, I think I know why that is. I didn’t attend the library, I worked at it. Part-time. I just started university and I wanted to help my parents with my living costs”, she explained with a shrug. “I always got in through the staff entrance in the back. I don’t think I’ve ever even seen the fudge place, or at least I never noticed it”

“Oh, I guess that makes sense”, Seungwan accepted, nodding along thoughtfully. “I can’t believe I almost got trapped in a cursed book forever over a fudge misunderstanding”, she joked, then grew red as she remembered that she situation only arose because she was nearly willing to give up her old life just to live in ignorant bliss with princess Joohyun. That was probably an awkward thing to bring up to the Joohyun in front of her.

“So, I was curious. You were the princess, you know, the main character. What was the story even like without you?”, she quickly asked before they could dwell too long on that particular topic.

“Oh, it wasn’t too interesting. A kingdom was being harassed by bandits and an evil wizard. A neighbouring prince showed up and managed to bring them all to justice. Then the king thanked him profusely, wishing he could unite their kingdoms and offer the prince his just reward, but he couldn’t because he didn’t have any daughters”, Joohyun explained, tapping her fingers against her cup and gazing at the liquid inside with her full attention. “I… I guess it only makes sense why I’d go in if you knew a little more about me”, she added after some hesitation.

“So tell me”, Seungwan requested simply. She wanted to reach out and grab her hand but she didn’t know if she could. It felt strange, they were the same people but subtly different. She didn’t know this Joohyun or anything about her life. They’d shared such a strong bond, but now things were changed just enough for a new awkwardness to stretch between them. Joohyun was the love of her life, but she was also a stranger, and Seungwan wondered what that meant for them.

“My parents are a little… traditional. They’re fine with me focusing on my studies and my career, but eventually they’ll want me to get married and have a family. I’ve always known that and it’s always felt like something I should do, the way my life should go in the end. But all throughout high school, whenever a boy would ask me out, I’d never feel anything. There wasn’t any part of me that wanted to go on that date or get to know them or… anything”

She shifted in her seat, avoided Seungwan’s eyes as she took a drink then immediately returned her gaze to her tea. “I told myself and everyone else that I was going to focus on my education first, that high school was too early for dating. Then I got to university and I didn’t have that excuse anymore. My parents started pushing a little more and I started saying yes to some dates. I thought maybe it was just awkward at first and it would be easier as I got to know them. But it just never felt right”

“And then I found that book, when I was cleaning up in a back room. I read it all in a couple of hours and it just stuck in my mind” She brushed her hair behind her ear and finally looked at Seungwan, offering her a small embarrassed smile. “It sounds stupid, but in that moment I just… I wished I could be that princess that the king wanted. I wished I could just marry a prince and unite our kingdoms and know that I’d done the right thing. All those dates I went on, I kept wondering. Does it feel like this because I’m with the wrong person? Or will I just… keep looking forever, because there is no right person out there and it’ll never get any better? I just wanted to be sure. To feel like I knew what I was doing”

Seungwan nodded solemnly, trying her best to show Joohyun that it wasn’t stupid at all. That she got it. That it wasn’t just princesses in magical kingdoms that could struggle with figuring out their feelings.

“I suppose one good thing came out of being trapped in that book”, Joohyun concluded with a laugh. “I met you, and now I’m pretty sure I know why all those dates felt wrong. I guess I’m gay”, she announced grandly, the dramatic flair poorly concealing the real awe that clearly grew inside her at the realization. The great sigh of relief as this pressing mystery in her life was solved and everything made sense at last.

“Yeah!”, Seungwan replied with forced cheer, her insides deflating a bit as she struggled to understand where they stood. “And now you can, uh, go on dates with women!”, she added with a forced smile. She tried not to dig her nails too hard against her cup, afraid she’d pierce the fragile material.

“Oh”, Joohyun said, blinking rapidly as she looked away. “I wasn’t really… planning on dating women. Or, I mean, maybe one woman. Maybe… I thought…”, she trailed off, her eyes flickering between Seungwan and the wall with nervous movements.

“Oh”, Seungwan echoed. She carefully put down her cup, still half-full of the drink she’d nearly forgotten as they talked. “I wasn’t sure if you’d still…”

“You’re still the same. You’re the same person I fell in- I fell for”, Joohyun pointed out quickly. “Why wouldn’t I feel the same? I’m the one who doesn’t… I’m not a princess anymore, I mean, I giggle a lot less. I barely giggle, really. I’m not as decisive, either. I second-guess myself a lot, I don’t just suddenly decide to run away from home or anything. I don’t know how to ride a horse”, she finished weakly, bringing her cup to her lips before realizing that it was already empty and setting it down sheepishly.

“I can’t ride a horse either”, Seungwan quipped, her words struggling to come out against the knot in her throat. It was a happy knot, one that made her feel like she’d never be able to speak again when all she wanted to do was smile, smile and lose herself in Joohyun’s eyes. So, instead of talking, she reached for the girl’s hands and brought them to her lips, carefully kissing each of the knuckles.

“I didn’t fall in love with a princess”, she pointed out in a soft voice. She felt like she was going to cry again, which she definitely hoped to avoid. “I fell in love with Joohyun. I fell in love with you”

Joohyun smiled then, a bright, radiant smile, and Seungwan knew she’d have something new to add to her notebook. Because that was a smile she’d never seen before. A smile that didn’t belong to the princess, one that was born entirely from the girl in front of her. And it was so beautiful.

They walked home slowly, hand in hand, taking more than twice the time Seungwan would have taken on her own. Neither of them seemed in any rush to end the night, lost in each other, in the simple pleasure of holding hands and knowing that they were together, finally together and happy.

As they reached Seungwan’s street, their steps slowed until they were barely moving. She didn’t want to say goodbye, even if it was just for one night and she could see Joohyun again the next day, and the day after that, and every day. Even if she knew that wasn’t going anywhere. They stopped in the shade between two lampposts, delaying the inevitable for as long as they could.

After what felt like no time at all but must have surely have been at least half an hour, they let their hands slip apart, shoving them in their pockets to protect them from the cold. Seungwan turned to leave, but a hesitant touch on her shoulder stopped her.

“Do you… Do you remember what you told me? When we were captured?”, Joohyun asked with searching eyes. Seungwan remembered all of it, enough that she couldn’t be sure which part she meant, so she stood silently, waiting for her to elaborate. “I just thought… It’s all over and we’re safe and… I’m not your princess”, she finished slowly.

Seungwan’s heart jumped into her throat as she realized what Joohyun meant. As she realized that she was right. She’d never finished her promise, but it stood nonetheless. And now all those impossible conditions had finally come true and she could just step forward and kiss her. Her Joohyun.

“Well”, she said playfully, happiness flowing so strongly through her entire being that she felt lighter than the air, ready to float off towards the stars. “You’ll always be my princess. In here”, she added, pointing at her heart with a wink.

Joohyun groaned, her hand flying off Seungwan’s shoulder dramatically. “You know what? I changed my mind, you can go home now”, she said in fake disgust. She turned away, possibly to walk off, but Seungwan stopped her by reaching out her hand and capturing her elbow.

She pulled her back in one swift motion, her free hand moving up to cup her cheek before she was kissing her. When their lips met, her entire body seemed to melt in a single sigh. Every single worry she’d ever had disappeared with that sigh, fading into the cold night air, leaving behind nothing but her and Joohyun, together, under the barely visible stars.

“I love you”, Joohyun whispered against her lips, her hands moving to settle on Seungwan’s waist as she pulled her closer.

“I know”, she whispered happily, barely able to resist Joohyun’s lips for long enough to form the words.

In a fairy tale, this would be the end. The starry sky would explode in fireworks, the world around them would erupt into celebrations, the very trees would blossom, bursting with colour and fragrance and life under the contagious vitality of their love. And then they’d live happily ever after.

But this wasn’t a fairy tale. It was real life. And that was so much better.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And that's the end! I hope everybody enjoyed reading this, it was my first kpop multi-chapter fic and I had a lot of fun seeing people's thoughts and reactions. I already have the next story ready, but I'm not sure when I'll start posting it. Follow me on twitter @numot94 for updates and stuff if you want


	11. Epilogue

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This story got 100 upvotes over at AFF, so I wanted to write a little something to thank everyone. Here is the epilogue of Death of the Author, I hope you like it!

“You know, it’s not too late to back down.” Seungwan scanned the coffee shop with a slightly nervous glance. It was nearly empty, but she wasn’t sure how much longer they had.

“Why would I want to back down?” Joohyun’s voice sounded light, a little too light, like her mind was far away from the conversation. She sat by Seungwan’s side, eyes fixed on the front door even though the little bell at its corner would be sure to warn her of any visitors.

“Oh, well, just in case you’re feeling nervous or something.” Joohyun scoffed at Seungwan’s suggestion and turned to face her girlfriend, probably so she could communicate how very calm she was.

“I am not nervous,” the older girl said drily, as predicted.

“In that case, could you not hold my hand so tightly? It’s getting numb, a little bit,” she retorted, trying her best not to sound too smug as she raised their joined hands. Joohyun’s fingers dug into the back of her palm, knuckles nearly white. At Seungwan’s words, the vice-like grip weakened the slightest bit, the look on Joohyun’s face somewhere between apologetic and stubborn.

“You’re nervous too,” she finally relented, and Seungwan couldn’t help a smile at the sight. Before either of them could let out an awkward chuckle that would eventually grow into laughter and relieve some of the tension of waiting, the bell above the coffee shop rang, snapping both their heads in its direction.

The newcomer was a small girl in a middle-school uniform who didn’t even bother going up to the counter and spending her sparse allowance on some caffeinated drink too bitter for her young palate. Instead, she found the couple at the back of the shop in a flash and confidently headed in their direction.

Maybe it was for the best that Yerim had been the first to arrive. After all, she was the closest to the princess, so Joohyun would probably feel most comfortable around her.

“So you’re not really a princess, huh?” Yerim fired off as soon as she’d sat down. Joohyun seemed startled at the lack of formalities, but quickly nodded in agreement. Seungwan began to rethink her previous conclusion.

She’d have to meet them eventually, of course. Seungwan couldn’t just avoid introducing Joohyun to her friends forever. Not to mention how Yerim was also Joohyun’s friend, in a way. But that didn’t make the couple any less nervous, which Seungwan had thought was a silly reaction until this very moment, when they found themselves sitting in front of an aggressively curious Yerim with no chance of escape.

Seungwan had called Seulgi to tell her Joohyun was real as soon as she’d gotten home on that fateful night. After that, she’d also informed Sooyoung and Yerim, although she’d given the younger girls a slightly abbreviated version. One that didn’t include the part where she’d kissed Joohyun and now they were dating.

It was just easier to explain in person. Seulgi had known about her feelings, but Seungwan was pretty sure that Sooyoung wasn’t that well informed, and Yerim in particular probably didn’t have the slightest idea that there had been any romantic feelings between Seungwan and the princess.

 “It’s cool that you’re real. You were okay when you weren’t making me brush your hair.” Yerim reached for each of their drinks in turn, tasting Seungwan’s americano with a displeased grimace and raising an appreciative eyebrow at Joohyun’s hot chocolate. “Are you girlfriends now?” she threw out casually, not even bothering to make eye contact.

Joohyun squeaked out something incoherent and Seungwan fought off a coughing fit to answer the young girl. “I- why would you think that?”

“You’re holding hands.” Yerim tilted Joohyun’ cup towards their entwined fingers, pointing them out, then took another sip.

“That doesn’t even make any sense, I’m always holding hands with –“ Seulgi. Better not mention that, though. “All my friends,” Seungwan finished with a slight stutter.

“Yeah, but _all your friends_ don’t get all red when I mention it.” At Yerim’s comment, Joohyun’s already pink cheeks blushed a shade darker and her fingers jerked, like she was resisting the instinct to pull her hand away, which would be useless at this point.

“Anyway, you’re not wearing a high school uniform,” Yerim carried on without even giving them the time to confirm her suspicions. “Did you already graduate? Are you in college? Do you have a job? How old are you, exactly? Isn’t it kind of weird that you’re dating someone in high school?”

“I’m not that old!” Joohyun cut through the barrage of questions when indignation finally overcame the nerves that had her tongue-tied.

“And I’ll be 18 in a few months,” Seungwan added quickly, although that only drew Yerim’s unimpressed attention. She took a calming breath and tried again. “Joohyun is in college, and she does have a job, I guess, but it’s part-time. And she’s not that old,” she conceded, drawing a satisfied smile from her girlfriend.

Yerim fell silent for a moment, staring at each of them in turn while she continued to drink Joohyun’s hot chocolate. Seungwan felt the pressure on her fingers increase as Joohyun’s hold tightened once more. Finally, Yerim shrugged. “Yeah, okay.” Joohyun let out a relieved sigh at Yerim’s casual acceptance. “But you’re a butt for not telling me.” Yerim punctuated her accusation with a glare in Seungwan’s direction, but her bright smile quickly returned, so Seungwan didn’t take her words too seriously.

Neither of them noticed the bell had rung again until Seulgi and Sooyoung appeared by their table with their own drinks, apparently having arrived at the same time. Yerim let out a pleased squeal at their presence and quickly pulled Sooyoung to sit by her side.

“Sooyoung! Joohyun and Seungwan are dating!” she immediately announced to her best friend, who glanced around and aimed a shy smile at Joohyun. Joohyun matched it as warmly as she managed, but Sooyoung let her gaze drop quickly and returned her attention to Yerim.

Seungwan watched the two young girls speak in low tones, her gaze softened by fondness. Seulgi looked on as well, still standing by the table. With Joohyun and Seungwan sitting on one side and Yerim and Sooyoung on the other, she hovered uncertainly for a bit before she pulled over a chair to settle at the head of the table, between the two pairs.

“So, Captain Kang,” Joohyun began in an attempt at humour. Seulgi smiled nervously, fingers tapping against the sides of her cup. “It’s nice to meet you now that you’re no longer responsible for keeping me locked up.” Joohyun let out a self-conscious chuckle at her own joke, with Seungwan and Seulgi quickly offering their own smiles.

“It’s nice to meet you now that you’re no longer trying to run away whenever I turn my back,” Seulgi shot back experimentally, some of the tension in her frame fading as Joohyun smiled in return.

Seungwan watched the exchange in silence, unwilling to meddle when her girlfriend and her best friend seemed to be getting along well enough on their own. Across from them, Yerim continued to whisper apparently endless gossip in Sooyoung’s ear, the shy girl clearly relieved at not being pulled into conversation with the other three, particularly Joohyun, whom she didn’t even know.

“I’m curious, why did you choose to be captain of the guards?” Joohyun asked Seulgi, pulling Seungwan’s attention back to the pair that most worried her. She hadn’t forgotten Joohyun’s jealousy and she really didn’t want it to get between the two girls, who she was sure could be good friends. So far, though, everything seemed to be going great.

“Oh, uh, I guess I just wanted to protect people. Make sure I was there to keep anyone from getting hurt. Or kidnapped,” Seulgi added playfully. Joohyun’s shoulder bumped into Seungwan’s as she leaned a little closer to talk to Seulgi more comfortably, the contact almost as reassuring as the easy smile still on Joohyun’s lips.

“That’s very noble of you,” Joohyun commented, not entirely joking. “I’m glad to know it wasn’t just because you like to beat people up.”

“Yeah, I don’t think she could if she tried,” Seungwan finally cut in, reaching out to wrap her fingers around Seulgi’s arm in evidence of her scrawny frame. Seulgi slapped her hand away with a good-humoured eyeroll, both girls falling easily into their usual teasing friendship before snapping apart in apprehension at Joohyun’s reaction.

The older girl only leaned more fully against Seungwan, watching the exchange with seemingly innocent interest. The friends relaxed, resuming their exchange without further physical contact.

“I’m working on that,” Seulgi countered Seungwan’s comment self-consciously. “I’ve started taking Taekwondo classes,” she added for Joohyun’s benefit, catching the older girl’s curious gaze.

“Sounds fun. I used to do Taekwondo when I was younger.” Seulgi’s surprise was evident, her eyes widening comically as her mouth fell open. The reaction drew a slight giggle from Joohyun. “What? I’m not actually a princess, you know. I had a regular childhood,” she pointed out with amusement, Seungwan laughed along even though she had to admit she was also having trouble wrapping her head around the image of a younger Joohyun doing Taekwondo.

“Sorry, it’s just still kind of weird. Wannie told us you’re real and all, but I’m just so used to… uh…” Her words trailed off to nothing as she took in Seungwan’s look of panic, suddenly becoming aware of the nickname she’d just used.

Sure, their reaction might be a little exaggerated, but princess Joohyun had been upset when Seungwan had called Seulgi by her first name, so it wasn’t completely unreasonable to think that the real Joohyun might object to an affectionate nickname.

The older girl sighed, the worry on Seungwan and Seulgi’s faces impossible to ignore. “I’m not going to get mad or anything, okay?” As promised, she didn’t sound angry at all. If anything, she seemed a bit embarrassed. “I know that as a princess I was a little… Spoiled and possessive. But that’s not, I mean… As a princess, you don’t really learn how to share, you know?”

They hurried to nod along, Seungwan taking the care to brush her thumb along the back of Joohyun’s hand for encouragement. “But I’m not a princess anymore. I’m an adult and I can handle my girlfriend having friends. I’m glad you two are such close friends,” she added, looking between Seungwan and Seulgi. “It’s honestly really embarrassing to think about how I acted with this. So I’m sorry and I promise I won’t get jealous again. You guys can relax.”

Seulgi waved away her apology without hesitation, beaming widely in her best attempt to set Joohyun at ease. Her easy-going disposition was hard to resist and soon Joohyun had exchanged her contrite expression for a tentative smile which Seungwan further encouraged with a quick peck to her cheek that had the youngest in the group instantly breaking off her conversation with Sooyoung to complain loudly at the public show of affection.

After the initial tension, conversation progressed easily between the three oldest, Joohyun and Seulgi bonding so quickly that Seungwan almost began to fear for her own position as Seulgi’s best friend, much to the amusement of the other two.

On their side of the table, Yerim and Sooyoung kept up their own hushed communication, despite a few attempts from Seulgi and Seungwan to pull them away from their little bubble. Sooyoung was clearly shy and unsure how to approach Joohyun and Yerim seemed to have taken it upon herself to save her the trouble by monopolizing her attention. She had good intentions, but obviously it wasn’t a long-term solution.

Surprisingly, it was Joohyun who intervened, despite her own introverted nature. She waited until Yerim got up to go to the bathroom, then quickly slipped away from Seungwan to take the younger girl’s place by Sooyoung, who immediately froze like a deer caught in the headlights. “Sooyoung,” she began gently, her expression as inoffensive as she could make it. “We never really met in the story, did we? Not in Seungwan’s version of it, anyway,” she added with a light smile that Sooyoung weakly returned.

She didn’t get a verbal answer, only a slight shake of Sooyoung’s head in confirmation. She leaned forward conspiratorially and Seungwan had to restrain herself from leaning in as well, to catch whatever Joohyun would say next. “I’m actually kind of glad,” Joohyun admitted to everyone’s surprise.

Sooyoung’s eyebrows rose curiously and she shifted closer to Joohyun unconsciously, the older girl’s mysterious behaviour already beginning to succeed in bringing Sooyoung out of her shell. “This way I get to meet the real Sooyoung, as the real Joohyun. I think I’ll make a better first impression.” Joohyun’s face scrunched up in exaggerated embarrassment, pulling Sooyoung’s lips into a wider smile.

“So, nice to meet you.” Joohyun stuck out her hand, despite their position side by side making it a little awkward to manoeuvre. “My name is Joohyun.”

Sooyoung studied her hand for only a moment before reaching out her own and shaking it. “I’m Sooyoung,” she said in a low but decided voice.

When Yerim returned from the bathroom, all four girls were already excitedly debating some absolutely trivial topic. The young girl slipped into the seat by Seungwan without protest, taking in the scene. Finally, she leaned closer to Seungwan.

“I think Sooyoung stole your girlfriend,” Yerim whispered in her ear.

“I think Joohyun stole your best friend,” Seungwan riposted with a laugh.

(…)

After saying their goodbyes to the other girls, Joohyun walked Seungwan home. They took their time, neither of them in any rush to leave the other’s presence, joined hands swinging lazily between them as they strolled down quiet streets.

“You really got along well with everyone today,” Seungwan commented happily, bumping her shoulder lightly against Joohyun. “Be honest, how much did you practice for today?”

Joohyun laughed at her teasing words, but didn’t refute them. “I guess all those diplomacy lessons came in handy. Even if they were more intended for pleasing foreign dignitaries than making friends.” She shrugged, gaze a little distant despite the humour in her voice.

Seungwan had thought about it on occasion. Her own fading memories were only of a short time, the few weeks she’d spent in the fairy tale. For everyone else, however, it was a bit more complex. Real memories mixed with fake ones, creating a whole new life. It must be difficult to juggle.

“Is it weird?” Seungwan asked a bit hesitantly. “Having two different sets of memories in your head?”

“It’s worth it to remember you,” Joohyun replied, her tone playfully flirty. Seungwan’s habit of making cringy comments was clearly rubbing off on her. “But honestly, it’s not really the memories that make it weird. It’s having two different Joohyuns in there.”

Seungwan’s brow furrowed in confusion and Joohyun cooed at her look of concentration, which according to her was very cute, before elaborating. “Princess Joohyun did and thought things that I wouldn’t, but at the same time I can understand why she made those choices because, in a way, it was me making them.”

“That does sound confusing. I guess I got an easier deal, since I was the same Seungwan in both worlds.” It began to dawn on Seungwan, the meaning of all that Joohyun sacrificed to hold on to the memories of their first meeting, of their time together in that fantasy world. To think that she treasured those memories so deeply made something warm and fluttering sprout in Seungwan’s chest, along with a silly urge to kiss Joohyun right there in the middle of the street.

“It’s confusing, but I’m beginning to think that it’s also kind of nice. Or maybe not nice, but… Useful. Important, I guess. It helps me empathize. See why people would do the things they do, even if I don’t agree. Or understand that there must be a reason, even if I can’t see it.” Joohyun trailed off, suddenly shy, although Seungwan couldn’t see why.

“You’re amazing,” she whispered honestly, clinging a little closer to Joohyun’s arm. Her girlfriend laughed it off, though the tip of her ear that poked out from under her hair had reddened visibly.

“ _I’m_ amazing? Might I remind you that you saved my life?” Joohyun questioned with teasing incredulity.

“Oh, please. If I hadn’t gotten you out of that book, someone else would have managed it eventually,” Seungwan was quick to argue, just as reluctant as Joohyun to be praised so highly.

“Fine, let’s say you didn’t save my life,” Joohyun replied sceptically, before growing serious. “You still changed it, for the better. Much better.”

Seungwan looked into Joohyun’s eyes, seeing the sincere gratitude and adoration shining in them. It felt impossibly wonderful, that she was dating the most incredible person who thought Seungwan had changed her life, when it was so clearly the opposite.

She glanced around the empty street, making sure they were alone, then pulled Joohyun closer and brought her free hand to the older girl’s cheek, brushing it gently with her thumb. She watched Joohyun’s eyes flutter closed under her caresses, lips parting slightly in anticipation, then leaned in, closing the short space between them.

Kissing Joohyun was like nothing she’d ever felt. Warmth enveloped her from head to toe, even in the coldest winter night, and she felt so happy, so contented and safe, that she never wanted to pull away. Joohyun’s lips felt like home. All of Joohyun felt like home.

“I’m really glad I met you,” she whispered, still impossibly close to Joohyun, a smile growing on her face at the way the older girl nodded, silently returning the sentiment. “Everything’s just easier with you. There’s so much in my life that seemed so overwhelming, all these choice with school and college and everything. But now I feel like I can do it because even if it goes terribly, you’ll still be there. Like things can never really get that bad. You know?”

Joohyun nodded again. “Being an adult doesn’t seem so scary if we do it together.”

“Yeah,” Seungwan agreed easily. “No need for magic and princesses.”

Joohyun pulled back then, fixing Seungwan’s eyes with an unreadable gaze. “I thought I’d always be your princess,” she pointed out in mock hurt.

She probably expected Seungwan to cringe at the cheesy comment, which was exactly why Seungwan decided instead to gasp dramatically, jumping away from Joohyun’s hold. “You are right, your Highness! How could I have forgotten my place?” she questioned in shock. Her façade cracked almost immediately, unable to resist Joohyun’s momentary bewilderment, and she let out a loud laugh before taking off in a run.

Behind her, she heard Joohyun’s laughter echoing her own, her girlfriend sprinting to catch her.


End file.
